One Last Battle
by Allard-Liao
Summary: "You have been become embroiled in a war that has been raging since before humanity became civilized."    A novel I'm writing. Please read and review.
1. Bring on the War

**One Last Battle, Ch. 1: Bring on the War**

"An American Indian wearing a black trench coat and patrol cap who didn't seem right." That was how people who did not know him described Lejule during his afternoon walks. What they would never know was what his walks were for, what he hid under his coat, or what he was. His walks were for hunting. And his prey was what he least wanted to see. The Man-Eaters. They are the werewolves you hear about in films and literature.

_Here comes one, now, _thought Lejule, _I can smell her_. There were three types of werewolves: man-eaters, who feast on human flesh, "beef-eaters," who eat the occasional livestock or wild animal, and the repentant man-eaters, who ceased eating humans after falling in love with one or being turned from the side of the man-eaters in exchange for continued life. Each type has a different scent.

Lejule looked along the street, searching for the werewolf he had smelled. And there she was. Walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Lejule was about to cross toward his prey when something caught his eye. The female was following a human. Lejule noted this under "insignificant," crossed the street, and followed. After walking for several minutes, Lejule saw the werewolf yank the human into an alley. Knowing what was coming, he quickened his pace. When Lejule reached the mouth of the alley, he saw that the werewolf had already changed and pinned the poor human to a pile of trash. And Lejule heard her speaking to the human.

"You have something of great interest to us. Something only you possess."

"What?" the human asked. He reeked of fear.

"Your blood. I will kill you and drain you dry."

For the first time, Lejule spoke. "Oh, I beg to differ." He reached for the kukri hidden in his coat.

The female looked at Lejule, noticing him for the first time. "Another puny human? I'll deal with you both in no time." She then turned to finish off the human.

"For a werewolf, your senses are pitiful," Lejule said as he hurled the kukri at her. "Let's see how your reflexes compare!"

The dagger rotated eleven times and slammed into the side of her windpipe. The kinetic energy of the impact forced her to eat trash rather than throat. Determining Lejule to be a very dangerous threat, she turned toward him and lost her breath. Standing before her was no mere human. Standing before her was an ancient, pure white werewolf with brilliant golden eyes. Two things one should know before I go on. First, when a human ages, they usually grow weaker; when a werewolf ages, they always grow stronger. Second, a werewolf's fur and eye color can indicate their age and alignment. The darker the fur, the younger the werewolf. If there is a tinge of red-orange in the majority of the hairs in the fur and the wolf eyes are red, then one is viewing a man-eater and needs to vacate the premises immediately. If the wolf-eyes are orange and there is a rust-red stripe in the fur (which grows paler with age), then one is looking at a repentant man-eater and is relatively safe. Finally, yellow wolf eyes and a complete absence of red pigment in the fur are indicative of a beef-eater and one is completely safe around one. The significance of the wolf before her being pure white was that there was record of only one pure white werewolf ever existing. And it was Lejule.

Lejule smelled the female's sudden fear and was exhilarated by it. He stalked forward and seized her by the neck. In response, the female threw a punch at him, striking him in the nose. A follow-up punch forced him to let go. Lejule recovered, settled into a fighting stance, and prepared for battle. He struck first, raking his claws across the side of the female's chest as she tried to dodge. She responded by digging her claws into his back and throwing him further down the alley. She used this respite to pull the kukri out of her neck and toss it down. Up to this point, the human had not moved, not even made a sound. Now, he started crawling toward the kukri, feeling a need to have a weapon and not feel defenseless. He crawled about four or five feet before he felt a heavy foot on his back pin him to the ground with the kukri just out of reach. Then came the female's voice again.

"Did you think I had forgotten about you?" she chuckled. The human couldn't see it, but he knew that she was about to deliver the blow that would kill him. It never came. From behind him, the human felt a second, slightly larger, foot tap his leg followed by the heavy, meaty thud of one large mass of flesh slamming into another as Lejule ran up and delivered a devastating forearm to the female's chest, launching her down the alley. He saw where his kukri had landed and picked it up. He walked over to where the female was getting back up and saw, from the slight deformities in the shape of her chest, that his forearm had broken several of her ribs. In a feat of pain tolerance that impressed Lejule, the female did her best to put each of her ribs back into place. However, this act allowed Lejule to walk up and grab her by the neck for the second time.

"Do you yield? Join me, fight Lazar, and live. Continue to fight me and you will die."

"I will not betray my master."

"Then you will forgive me for what I have to do." With this, Lejule, in a flash of fur, flesh, and metal, brought the blade up and slashed through the female's neck above where he held his claws, beheading her. He tossed the body aside and was about to search her personal effects for any trace of Lazar when he heard a gunshot, and felt a bullet rip through his heart and burst through the front of his chest. Feeling the bleeding wound reminded him of the human. Lejule turned toward the latter and saw a Desert Eagle in the man's hand. "Good choice of weapon." He grabbed the gun… "Poor choice of target." And crushed the barrel.

He chuckled at the wave of fear that swept over the human. "Don't worry. I won't kill, eat, or hurt you in any way."

"Cross your heart?"

"Cross my heart." As Lejule used one of his claws to make the motion, it came away bloody, which caused the human to faint.

Lejule sighed. "I was afraid this would happen." He walked over to where he had laid his coat. He fished through the pockets and found a small bottle of cubic crystals. He walked over to the human, opened the bottle, and hovered it near the human's nose. The Latter awoke with a start. "I admire your resolve, kid. Most folks drop on seeing one of us, much less one of us making a kill." He returned the bottle to where it came from and resumed his search.

"How many more werewolves are there?"

"Thousands, if not millions." He continued his search. "Name's Lejule." When the human didn't respond, Lejule said, "You got a name, kid, right?"

"Owen."

"Owen. Good name."

"Owen Grummish."

Lejule immediately froze. All at once, he realized Lazar's plan. Infuse his army with a legendary bloodline and increase its power, potentially, exponentially.

Seeing Lejule's reaction, Owen asked, "Something I said?"

"You did say 'Grummish,' right?"

"'Course."

"That explains why she was following you."

"How? A little vague on details."

"Sorry. Not here." He changed to human form and got dressed. "Meet me at the Brooklyn Sbarro at noon tomorrow. When you get to the counter, order a pizza, any type, 'red.' They'll direct you to my table. I'll explain everything there. When you get to bed tonight, lock all windows, as well as your front, back, and bedroom doors. Oh, and about the pizza, I'll pay." He put on his patrol cap and they both went on their respective ways.

Owen arrived home an hour later at 5 and spent the next 4 hours googling werewolves. He found dozens of videos. Youtube, cell phones, camcorders, even web cams. Several of the recent videos had the phrase "abnormal werewolf." Owen viewed each one. Most starred one character: a pure white werewolf intervening in disasters, saving people instead of eating them, unlike other werewolves. Owen then remembered what Lejule had said before Owen fainted and realized that the white werewolf in the videos was Lejule. As 9 o'clock rolled around, Owen shut down his computer and began doing as Lejule had instructed. Then he heard the sound of breaking glass and grabbed two things: his smart phone and the poker from the fireplace. He dove into a closet and dialed 9-1-1.

"9-1-1, state your emergency."

"Some guy just broke into my house and I think he's going to try to kill me."

"What is your place of residence and your name?" Owen gave her his name and address. "Police are on their way."

"Thanks." And Owen hung up.

On the other side of Manhattan, Lejule listened to his truck's police scanner. He heard a report of a burglary in progress at an address on the Northwest corner of Central Park. He started the truck and a phone call. The first words out of his mouth were the address. "You're the closest, Quartermaine. Investigate and report back. I'm between 20 and 30 minutes out, depending on the traffic."

"You got it, sir," was the reply after removing the Scottish burr.

"How many times have I told you to drop the accent?"

"This makes 4,311 times. Sorry." And he hung up.

Quartermaine arrived at the residence a minute later. Several deep sniffs and the sighting of an inwardly shattered second-story window told him what was happening. He pulled out his older cell phone and called Lejule. "It's one of Lazar's men. Jumped into the second floor through a window. There's a human male hiding in a closet and the werewolf is close to finding him."

"Act on your discretion. I'm 20 minutes out."

"Understood." Quartermaine turned off his cell phone, put it in his jacket pocket, and took off his jacket, shirt, shoes and socks. He walked up to the door, initiating the transformation as he walked, and kicked it open. Inside was a very surprised werewolf. Quartermaine jumped out of his pants and pounced on the werewolf while finishing his transformation, beginning what he knew would be a long bloody battle.

The sound of someone bashing his door open got Owen's attention. The sound of flesh smacking flesh made his curiosity overcome his caution. He opened the door and stepped out of the closet he'd been hiding in. What he saw stopped him cold with fear. Two werewolves were going at it, tooth and nail. One was colored a blackish red and was currently in the less advantaged position. The other was mostly a grayish tone except for a pale rust-colored band running along its back. The latter werewolf bit down on the former's shoulder, causing a disabling blow. Then Owen saw a set of flashing red and blue lights, followed by a cop bursting in, weapon at the ready. He immediately stopped in disbelief, only able to say: "Uh…Freeze?" Both werewolves did and looked at the cop.

When the officer mumbled "Freeze," both Quartermaine and the other werewolf turned to the officer. "Ah, fu-" was all Quartermaine could say before the other werewolf started to pounce on the officer. Quartermaine reacted immediately, grabbing the werewolf's leg and yanking, dislocating its upper knee and forcing it to the floor. He shouted to the cop, "If you value your life, get out of here and don't tell anyone what you've seen here."

The cop quickly nodded and high-tailed it to his Crown Victoria and drove off. Quartermaine then bit into the shoulder of the wolf, returning its attention wholly to Quartermaine. It rolled onto its back and drew its legs onto its chest, forcibly relocating its knee. Quartermaine got on top of the wolf and began to beat the crap out of it. It responded by kicking Quartermaine into the wall hard enough to crack it. The impact dazed Quartermaine.

Owen realized that the werewolf with the pale orange stripe was the "good" guy in this bout when it stopped the other werewolf from attacking the cop. He also knew that the former was in trouble after the kick. At the same time, he remembered how Lejule had killed the female earlier. He grabbed the poker in both hands, charged, and (with a battle yell) rammed it into the back of the evil wolf's neck. It responded with a cry of pain which turned to pure fury and a backhand that sent Owen flying. It then pulled the poker out of its neck and tossed it aside. "Worthless piece of garbage!" it roared, "What did you, either of you, think you could do to me?" It walked over to deliver the final blow to Owen with a massive forearm.

Quartermaine was amazed at the wolf's stupidity, turning its back on the stronger opponent to strike the inferior. He got up, ran over to the wolf,…"Wrong move," bit down on the wolf's medulla oblongata, and threw the wolf across the room. He needn't have done the last as the wolf was already dead. He looked over at the human as he stood back up and Quartermaine chuckled, "You got guts, laddie, I'll give you that. Taking on one of Lazar's wolves with just a poker and not faintin.'"

"Not the first time I've seen your kind in person."

"How?"

At that moment, Lejule arrived. He walked in, nodachi at the ready, and caught his breath. "You?"

Quartermaine became very confused at this point. "Lejule, you know this runt?"

It was Owen who spoke up. "He saved my butt earlier today from another werewolf."

Lejule nodded. "Lazar wants this one badly. I'll explain when we get home." Quartermaine changed, got dressed, and they all piled into Lejule's F250 and drove off.


	2. All about Werewolves

**One Last Battle, Ch. 2: All About Werewolves**

When they arrived and piled out of the truck, Owen leaned against the right rear door of the truck, refusing to move. "Where are we?"

"Trenton," replied Lejule. "Specifically, a section I personally demanded and funded the construction of; a place built to be an inconspicuous Center of Operations. But, what are we doing standing around outside for? Let's go inside for some good, hot food." The three of them walked into one of the small, Gothic-style houses scattered around the neighborhood overlooking the nearby river. Inside, Lejule directed Owen and Quartermaine to sit where they pleased in the living room while he went to the back porch. Quartermaine lay on the nearest couch while Owen took a look around. What caught his attention first was the rack of swords above the fireplace in the northwest wall. There were two Japanese swords underneath an empty slot. He tore his attention away from the swords to the movie cabinet. He noticed that every film was about werewolves. "Dog Soldiers." "Blood and Chocolate." "Ginger Snaps." "The Howling." "Never Cry Werewolf." As he took the last off the shelf to look at the description…

"Would you like to watch it?" came a deep-throated baritone voice from behind him. It startled him such that he dropped the movie and whipped around to see who it was, and Lejule reacted fast enough to catch the movie before it hit the ground. Seeing Lejule in his wolf form, this close, stirred feelings Owen couldn't identify.

"Well?"

Snapped out of his reverie, Owen replied, "Well what?"

"Do you want to watch this?"

"Not really." He put the movie back.

"This is one of the most accurate films I've found." He pulled one movie titled "Cursed" off the shelf. "Shall we?"

"Why not?"

They walked over to the couch, where Quartermaine currently slept, his wolf form sprawled over the entire couch. Lejule gave him a quiet "Quartermaine" and a light backhand to Quartermaine's shoulder. The latter sat bolt upright. Lejule motioned for him to move over, which Quartermaine did. Lejule put the disk into the player and they all sat down to watch the movie. As they watched, Owen could tell any "wrong" details, because Lejule or Quartermaine would snicker or laugh out loud when the movie got a werewolf "fact" wrong. The part they laughed loudest at was when the movie stated that a werewolf has enhanced sexual appeal. When the movie ended, Lejule got up and stated, "Dinner's ready."

As Lejule went to get whatever the dinner was, Owen leaned toward Quartermaine and asked, "How did he know?"

"By smell. There is a batch of chicken and a couple of nice lean steaks, both cooked rare. But, why are we jabbering? Let's go eat."

They walked over to the kitchen table which Lejule had just finished setting. Then they all sat and ate. It was a pleasant dinner, with a variety of human-healthy foods. And they all ate 'till they were full, a late order for the two werewolves. After the meal, Lejule bid Quartermaine "Goodnight" and sat down with Owen on the couch. "I promised to tell you what you've been dragged into, and I keep my promises.

"Let me begin by saying that werewolves are one of the youngest species on Earth. I am the first and oldest, having been a werewolf for ten millennia. At the time, my brother, Lazar, and I were among the rising stars of hunting in our tribe. One day, we were cleaning some deerskins for use by the tribe matriarch when I heard the most beautiful sound I had heard or would ever hear. It was a song, a wordless song, but a song nonetheless. I looked toward the sound and then toward Lazar and saw that he, too, heard the song.

'Should we tell the Shaman?' he had asked.

'The song might end before we get a chance to. I would rather find the singer or at least get closer,' was my reply.

After a moment of thought, he said, 'You know, so do I.'

'Well, grab your spear and let's go.'

We walked for several miles until we reached a cave behind a small waterfall in what is, today, considered a canyon. We walked in and found the singer and why there were no words. Inside was a dire wolf. Before we could fully comprehend what was happening, it pounced, pinning us both to the ground using only one paw each. We both reached the same conclusion at that moment: we would die in that cave. Lazar reached a hand out and grabbed my arm. I did my best to give him courage.

'We may die, but at least I will die fighting.'

At 'fighting,' I drove my fist into the wolf's hip. The instant my fist impacted the second time, the wolf clamped its jaws around my elbow and crushed the joint. Lazar's first blow landed then. Then the second. On the third, the wolf bit. It then stepped further back into the cave, growling the whole time. We got up off the cave floor and stared at the still-growling wolf.

I saw Lazar's eyes dart to one of our spears. I shook my head and said, 'Don't try it. The wolf would be on you before you could pick it up.'

Suddenly, the wolf's growling began to stutter and its body began to change, becoming human laughter and a ghostly old man's body, respectively. I immediately knelt, realizing who it was, and motioned for Lazar to do the same.

'Welcome my children. You heard my call and chose to listen,' the Great Spirit said. 'I apologize for the injuries I have caused, but I had to prove the strength and goodness in your hearts.' He placed a hand on my shoulder and then onto my wounded elbow, which stung for a moment before fully healing. He then did the same for Lazar's wound, and then He returned to the position where He had first addressed us. 'I need to determine whether you are worthy of the gift I wish to bestow upon you both.'

'We are not worthy of anything,' I said.

'We are just simple huntsmen providing for the tribe,' Lazar chimed in.

'Humility is a large portion of living with this gift, and you both have proven to be very humble. At this, He spread His hands and a puff of æther appeared over each hand. The puffs gradually took form, first as an ethereal wolf, then as a black humanoid wolf each. The pair crouched and jumped into the hearts of Lazar and me. 'The spirit of the wolf will share its strength with you, but, use it wisely or you will be punished.' With that, He drifted away and we were racked with pain until it knocked us out.

I awoke hours later with no pain. I realized that it was late at night and that the others would be looking for us. I was about to reach for my spear when I noticed some odd things. Lazar was gone, a giant wolf-like creature was sleeping next to me, and the cave seemed smaller then it was earlier. I looked at the spear and saw a paw instead of my hand. I tried to scream, but it came out as an anguished howl that woke the wolf.

It growled at me, but I could pull out legitimate words. 'Quiet down, will…?' It trailed off as it saw what I was. It barked out 'Lejule?'

I thought 'Lazar?' I was even more surprised when he responded.

'Lejule?'

'We can hear each other's thoughts?'

'I suppose so.'

We stood for a minute, just staring at each other until I picked up my spear and asked, 'Well, what now?'

'I suggest that we try out these new bodies, see what they're capable of.'

'Okay'

We grabbed our spears, exited the cave, and began warm-up exercises. When we finished, we performed a series of maneuvers and found that we were faster, stronger, and more agile than ever before. I then stated a very important question.

'Who would accept us like this?'

Before Lazar could answer, the eastern sky began to change color and we were hit by waves of pain, each worse than the last. I could see and feel bones breaking and reforming in both of us. I don't know when I blacked out, but I awoke when the sun was a couple of hours past rising. Lazar was standing over me, having woken up before me.

'Whoa. Slowly. Don't want you blacking out again.'

I got up a little too quickly and fought a wave of dizziness to stay upright.

'Warned you.'

'Yeah…' Then I noticed two things. First, both of us were naked. Second, because we were nude, I saw that we both had a more defined muscle tone all over. Yes, even down there. 'We need to get our clothes.'

'I agree.'

We ran back to the cave, spearing a deer along the way so we'd have evidence for an excuse for why we were out so late. I put on my, what could be called, clothes and saw a small, flat stone. As I picked it up, I noticed artwork on both sides. On one side, a human is sitting in the shade of a tree, protected from the noonday sun. The reverse side showed a wolf howling at the full moon next to that same tree. I realized that we would be people by day, beasts by night. I walked out of the cave and showed Lazar the stone and what I thought it meant.

'Well, if we are cursed to become those things every night, we ought to tell someone. Maybe the Shaman?'

'I don't think she would believe us.'

'Yeah. How about Guanin?'

'My wife?'

'Why not?'

I could not find a reason not to, and we walked back to the village with the deer. I explained what would be the reason if I did not come for dinner that night to my wife. She did not believe me until I showed her the stone. The image had changed. The wolf was gone, replaced by the same wolf-like creature Lazar and I had transformed into the night before. I assured her that I still loved her but I had to leave every night or I may hurt her. She believed me and told me that she knew. Then I went to the nearby forest to await the change with Lazar. When night fell, we waited, and waited, and waited, but the change never came. I studied the stone again and saw a new change. The sun side had shrunk to half its size and a new image had joined it. The new image showed the same human sitting in the light of a not-quite-full moon. That was when I realized that our changes would be governed by the Moon. I explained this to Lazar and we went back home. I explained the revelation to my wife and Lazar and I became active members of the tribe again, using our newfound strength and speed to bring down more and larger game. When the Moon became full, we would disappear. One detail I forgot to mention. When I told my wife that I would not become a monster every night, she was ecstatic and we made love to celebrate. Three transformations later, I noticed her belly getting larger and her smell had changed. I asked her what was happening to her and she had replied 'It's your child.' I immediately felt two emotions. The first was pride at becoming a father. The second was fear. Would this child bear the same burden that I do? Only time would tell. My son was born nine lunar cycles to the day that I was turned. Full-moon night, yet he showed no signs of changing. Sixteen years later, he had never changed, but he knew what I was. I had stayed with my wife throughout her labor, even after the change. Two firsts happened that night. I learned to speak in my wolf form. Also, for the first time, the pain did not knock me out, allowing me to fully analyze the transformation. Feel every bone break, lengthen, and reform. Feel some bones split and grow into bones not found in the human body. Feel every muscle tear and bulge. Feel my skin burst and regrow with a dense layer of fur covering it. Feel my nails move to the front of their respective digits, attach to bone, and thicken and lengthen into two-inch claws. See my vision getting sharper. Feel my other senses becoming more acute. Almost eight and a half minutes after my change had started, I stood in wolf form and looked at my wife who stared back with a look of combined fear and curiosity. I walked over to her and said, 'I'm sorry that you had to see that. That you have to see me, like this, as a monster.' I turned to leave, but she grabbed my paw.

'You don't need to apologize. I don't care what you are. If you love me, then I love you and want you to stay.'

That was when I realized that I could speak our language again. I praised the Great Spirit, and, to this day, believe that love for my wife and then-unborn child was the only reason I started to speak that night. I stayed with her all night. Good thing I did. She developed a blockage of the birth canal, so I performed a cesarean, or C, section and cut the baby out of her. Almost as if by instinct, I knew how to prevent my wife from dying of the wound produced by the surgery. I held the gash closed with one paw while biting the other 'till it bled. I then smeared the blood along the length of the gash and watched as it healed before our eyes. I then tended to the baby, picking it up and cradling it with one arm while laying my other arm lightly on top of the fragile child, placing it between to layers of thick, warm fur. While doing this, I found out his gender. 'What shall we name him?'

She replied 'Grumsh,' which translates, roughly, as 'lucky.'

'I believe that is appropriate.' I looked at him and saw his eyes open. They flicked from me to his mom and back to me. He hugged my paw, currently on his chest, and fell asleep. I lay on the ground, pulled my tail (at the time, it was long and somewhat bushy) in front of my face, laid the baby on it, curled around him, and fell asleep. I awoke in the morning to the sound of suckling. I saw my wife breast-feeding Grumsh and I smiled.

Sixteen years later, Grumsh was hunting by my side and, because of the werewolf blood in his veins, was able to keep up. This full moon night would tear our relationship asunder. I transformed as I had for years, and Grumsh and I began our hunt. Then, I heard a scream. Not a scream of pain or one of fear. No, this was a dying scream. I rushed back to the village and was horrified by what I saw. Bodies, men, women, even children, all torn apart. Most I could not recognize. I then realized that my wife was alone without any weapons. Whatever had destroyed several armed braves would rend her limb from limb with no trouble at all. I sprinted for our pit-house, leaving Grumsh far behind. I arrived just in time to hear, 'You wench!' and see a familiar figure smash my wife to the ground. The figure pulled her head back by her hair. 'You will sire my child as you sired his.'

'I cannot let you do that, Lazar.'

'Do you think that we were given this gift just to keep it to ourselves? Like a pair of selfish bastards?'

'Yes. We were deemed worthy to bear this gift. No one else. We should not force it on others.'

'Watch me.'

He began to mount my wife but was interrupted by a spear lodging itself in his back. I looked toward the door and saw Grumsh. Lazar also saw him.

'For trying to kill me, I will kill you.' He turned and pounced.

'Not if I have something to do about it.' I grabbed his right shoulder while he was in mid-flight and let his momentum carry him through a 630-degree spin. I applied more force for the last thirty degrees and let go at 630, throwing him through the wall of the house. I walked over to my wife and helped her up. I told her, 'Get dressed, take Grumsh, and head north. Get across the Eastern Sea where Lazar will not follow. I will make sure that he does not kill you along the way.' We walked outside a minute later, my wife and Grumsh ran off, and I pounced on the still-slightly-dazed Lazar. I rammed into him as he finished pulling the spear out through his chest. I don't remember many details from that battle, but I know that I lost most of my tail when Lazar bit it off. Then Lazar fled south and I have been hunting him and his spawn ever since. Across the Eastern Sea, which you know as the Pacific Ocean, through Asia, into Europe, and, from 1492 on, back to the Americas," Lejule finished. He looked at the ground and then back at Owen. "Any questions?"

"How does this involve me?"

"Apparently Lazar, and now I, believes that you are Grumsh's direct descendant."

Owen looked at Lejule with a skeptical look. "If I were, would I be able to change my form?"

"Maybe."

"How?"

"Call on the most primal portion of your mind. Ask it to reveal your true form." Seeing Owen close his eyes as if in concentration, Lejule added, "Not in here and not now. I would like to finish my lecture and then we go outside before you attempt to transform."

"Fine. Continue."

"Well, now that our history is complete, let's compare how werewolves are represented in the media versus the reality. First and foremost, can silver kill a werewolf? The answer is: only if it is delivered to the right spot. Of course, anything delivered to the right spot is effective. A silver bullet, blade, or stake is as effective as anything else, meaning to say, not at all, unless it is delivered to the head. In fact, a werewolf can only be killed by severing the top of the spinal column or delivering massive trauma to the brain. Another myth is that a werewolf becomes little more than a giant wolf. This is false for two reasons. The first is the difficulties involved. It is much easier for a bipedal humanoid to change into a bipedal canine than into a quadruped canine. Also, a quadruped possesses far less utility that a biped, primarily because of a lack of hands. Thus, a biped is the chosen body design for werewolves. Another myth, shown most recently in the films "Van Helsing," the latter pair of the "Underworld" series, and the "Ginger Snaps" series, is that a werewolf cannot change back to human form after their first transformation. I need not comment on that one. Yet another myth is shown in the film "Cursed;" namely that a dog can become a werewolf. Not true. A dog is little more than a domesticated wolf at heart and is not affected by the wolf portion of a werewolf's blood. At worst, they will express signs of heightened aggression. A last myth that I will talk about is that werewolves become mindless killing machines when they change. Only some of Lazar's wolves let their wolf sides have that much control. Interestingly, a werewolf's mental clarity usually improves in their wolf form.

Since we're finished with mythology, let's move on to biology. There are three basic types of werewolves: man-eaters, beef-eaters, and repentant man-eaters. The three types of werewolves can only be told apart by a human when they are in their wolf form. A man-eater's primary feature is that their fur has a rusty tint from the blood of their victims. If you get close, which I hope you don't, you can see that their eyes are red with eternal bloodlust. The man-eaters are usually larger in bulk than beef-eaters. The man-eaters, led by Lazar, hunt humans. They are the werewolves that are portrayed in film and literature. They are fewer in number than the beef-eaters, yet they do not fear being seen by humans. Thus, unfortunately for people and werewolves alike, the man-eaters make their kills in the open and become the stereotype of 'werewolf.' An interesting side effect of eating human flesh rather than animal flesh is that the man-eaters are overall weaker than the other types of werewolves. Somehow, human flesh is less nutritious than animal flesh. The only exception to the rule is Lazar. This is because of the fact that Lazar was a beef-eater for the first seventeen years of being a werewolf. This brings us to the second group, the beef-eaters. They consist of me and my comrades and kinsmen. They are my friends, not my subordinates. The beef-eaters are the oldest and most numerous of the three species, having roamed the Earth for ten thousand years and numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Despite the name, beef-eaters do not restrict their diet to cattle. In fact, cattle make up but a small portion of a beef-eater's diet. Their primary prey items are deer and man-eaters, with the latter making up a steadily growing proportion. Beef-eaters are the strongest, age for age, of all werewolves. Often, a beef-eater is a match for two man-eaters of equal or lesser age. A beef-eater can be identified by the fact that their fur has no trace of rust coloring and their eyes have a golden hue of purity. They are smaller in bulk that man-eaters on average, but are more heavily muscled. There is one item to note. All beef-eaters, as a symbol that their lives will never be the same, abandon their names and take on a new name without a surname. We make it our mission to exterminate the man-eaters wherever they are found. In recent years, however, we have been trying to turn as many werewolves away from Lazar's side as possible. The successes are known as repentant man-eaters. They are the youngest of the three species, the first one of the kind having been turned from a man-eater only 179 years ago. They are more powerful that man-eaters but, because of their previous human diet, less powerful than beef-eaters. They are distinguished by the fact that their fur has a band of rust-colored fur running down the center of their backs from the tip of their muzzles to the tip of their tails. Their eyes blaze orange with the fires of the conflict between the two wolves within their hearts. The wolves are who they were and who they will be. The way a repentant man-eater is formed is if a man-eater can go two lunar cycles, two full moons, without eating a human." He paused for a moment before continuing, "Now that I've contrasted the three types of werewolves, let me compare them. Starting at the very beginning, there are two methods to become a werewolf. Either be born to a pair of werewolves or contract the lycanthrope virus. The werewolf curse is transmitted as the lycanthrope virus in the saliva and blood of a werewolf. Strangely, the virus dies when it hits air, meaning that it is rather difficult to become a werewolf if one is not born as a werewolf. This means that becoming a werewolf would involve one of two processes. The first is the ubiquitous bite, which needs to be held for three continuous seconds to make sure enough of the virus enters the victim's body to initiate the transformation process. Two nights before the new werewolf's first full moon, they become ill with a sickness that defies all explanation and treatment. It then, just as mysteriously, goes away when the morning comes and the victim doesn't even remember being ill. The next night, they fall ill again, but, this time, the virus kills them. They remain dead throughout the following day and rise as a werewolf come nightfall and the rise of the full moon. The other method to become a werewolf is to wear a pendant, forged and cooled in a werewolf's blood, during a full moon. The blood becomes acidic long enough to eat through the pendant. It then loses its acidity and is absorbed through the skin into the body. Once there, the DNA of the virus in the blood, which is revived by the forging and energy of the full moon, merges with and changes the affected person's DNA. One lunar cycle later, they become a werewolf. A werewolf must change with the full moon. The reason for this is that the amount of a specific type of radiation found in moonlight, an amount found only on the night of a full moon, mimics the call to change. As a werewolf ages, they gain more and more control over the changing process, gaining the ability to change an additional night before and after the full moon every thirteen years or so. At around one hundred years of age, a werewolf has mastered the ability to change during any night. Then they begin the assault on daylight. By the end of their first millennia, most werewolves have begun to master using the diluted form of the moonlight radiation found in daylight for the transformation. When a werewolf changes, or, as some people term it, shifts form, their size changes substantially, with the wolf form always being much larger than their human form. However, the Law of Conservation of Matter states that such a change of mass is impossible. To counter that, a werewolf's body is able to convert mass into energy and vice versa. The power source to facilitate the conversion and transformation is that unique moonlight radiation. With age also comes a faster transformation. The time it takes to transform drops by less than a second per full moon, though the exact time varies from werewolf to werewolf. I can transform in under a second. Quartermaine, who is 1109 years old, takes a full minute to change his form. A newly formed werewolf requires an average of nine painful minutes to change. Another aspect that gets better with age is physical power. For instance, I, in my wolf form, can run on two legs at a speed of thirty miles per hour for several hours. A younger werewolf can maintain only fifteen to twenty-five miles per hour. I know not the limits of my wolf form's muscular strength, but my human form can, with effort, flip a Ford Excursion. A third ability that all werewolves have is the ability to recover from almost any injury quickly. This is because of the sheer number of stem cells in a werewolf's body. Were one to total all of the non-stem cells in a werewolf's body, one would find that they make up only a third of their cellular mass. This, in basic terms, means that when a cell dies, there are two cells to replace it. Because of this, werewolves gain immunity to aging, disease and poison. When a cell is affected by any malady, it is destroyed, replaced and disposed of. Interestingly, any disease a werewolf receives before they are turned runs its natural course. While the healing is formidable, it can be overburdened, leaving scars in places. Also, all young werewolves share a common allergy: Silver. Not at a level that silver can be fatal, but such that silver's touch will cause intense pain. Apparently, silver's molecular structure disagrees with a werewolf's DNA. Eventually, the werewolf's DNA reconfigures itself so that it no longer chemically reacts with silver. As is readily obvious, werewolves are predators. As such, their digestive systems are more responsive to meat and digest it more easily than vegetation, or fruits and vegetables, meaning that meat takes a shorter time to digest and fruits and vegetables take a longer time to digest. I believe I am finished. Wait, one last thing. When one werewolf bites another, the newly injected virus negates the healing affects of the tremendous number of stem cells. This means that the wound heals as a wound on a human would, leaving scars visible in both forms. That is the reason why my tail has not regenerated despite the wound being almost ten thousand years old. Now, I'm finished. Let's go outside and see if you can change your form."

Owen was overjoyed at hearing this and was out of the back door almost before Lejule finished speaking. The latter walked out the door and looked at the moon.

"Three nights until the Moon is full." He looked at Owen and saw the latter concentrating, trying to trigger the change. Surprisingly, he was able to change faster than any first-time werewolf, triggering the change in two minutes and achieved his wolf form, very similar in look to but a little smaller than Lejule's wolf form, in only thirty seconds. But, to Lejule's utter amazement, Owen continued to change, each change adding elements to the wolf form.


	3. Something New

**One Last Battle, Ch 3: Something New**

To Lejule's utter astonishment, Owen underwent three more transformations beyond his wolf form. The first additional change was that he grew taller, achieving ten feet, and his tail shortened. His body bulked up in accordance with his increase in height and his fur changed from a light gray to a very light brown. This change and those that followed all also took thirty seconds. The third transformation was the most painful, forcing Owen to support himself on his hands and knees. Lejule saw that the muscles and bones of Owen's back were rearranging themselves, most noticeably in the formation of new joint sockets on his shoulder blades. Glowing energy swirled around the new sockets and condensed into a pair of semi-draconian wings ten feet long by five feet wide. The canine fangs of the wolf form doubled in length until they bracketed the lower jaw. Then came the final transformation. All the fur, even the very thin fur covering the wings, changed color again, from the very light brown of the second transformation to a set of orange and black stripes with pure white paws, belly, and chin. In other words, a tiger's fur pattern. The claws became retractable and more curved. The limbs, and the body overall, became more lithe, except for the muzzle, which broadened. Then, when the change was finally complete, Owen unfurled his new, massive wings to their fullest extent and took flight with one flap of the powerful wings. He flew around the area for several minutes before diving toward Lejule and alighting with a heavy thud on his feet with less than two feet separating him from Lejule. Owen stood up straight, sighed, and looked at Lejule, revealing a set of emerald feline eyes. "Does the transformation always feel this liberating?" His words revealed another aspect of the second transformation: his voice had dropped to a gravelly base.

Lejule did not reply. He just stood there, dumbfounded, wondering if he had truly seen what he had just seen.

Owen broke the awkward silence, stating, "You know, there is a legend in the family about how we became slightly faster, stronger, and more agile than most humans. 'Four ancestors determined our fate. Each was bred by an animal. The first was bred by wolf, the second by bear, the third by bat, and the last by tiger and they all passed their power to their children.' I never believed that legend until I saw you. Your son was the first ancestor. The second and third ancestors are lost to time, but my grandpa was the last ancestor. He had served in the Pacific theater in World War II. When the war ended, he resigned his commission and settled down in the Philippines. He had a one-night stand with a native girl, but he watched a tiger-like creature run off and the girl was gone. Nine months later, he had heard a knock on his door, opened it, and saw the same tiger-like creature dart off into the forest. He looked at his feet and saw a small child. He took the child in as his own and it became my father. Apparently, there are other species of weres."

Lejule came out of his stupor. "I suppose so. I had heard of other species, but never of a mix." He walked around Owen, analyzing every detail of the mix-breed's body. He had never been dwarfed by a humanoid before. The closest he had come to being dwarfed was by the eight-and-a-half foot tall Meike. The creature standing before him towered over him by two and a half feet. Its tail, while as long as a werewolf's, was, at most, half as bushy and thick. Its fur was colored the same as a tiger's. Its wings, Lejule now saw, were more bat-like than draconian, being covered in a thin layer of fur rather than scales. After noting these details, Lejule moved around to the front of Owen's new body to examine more of it. The first detail he noted was the enlarged muzzle and the two greatly enlarged fangs bracketing the lower jaw. He also noticed that the fangs were truly hollow rather than having a groove in the back like a werewolf fang. Noticeable lower down on Owen's body was a lithe, yet wiry, muscle structure. Then came the ands and, what Lejule considered, the second most interesting characteristic of the, as he would later term Owen, "Ulti-were." The claws topped out at four inches in length, twice the length of Lejule's own claws, and were retractable, a trait Lejule envied. Then came the eyes. Two gorgeous emerald feline eyes reflecting with the classic glow of eye shine. Lejule was about to comment when an all-too familiar scent touched his nose. Owen detected it, too, because he turned toward the copse of trees that the smell came from. He looked toward Lejule, saw the latter's reaction, and asked, "Are they what I think they are?"

"Yep, man-eaters," Lejule replied, never taking his eyes off the trees. He then dropped his voice to a whisper. "Do you want to take them or shall I?"

"Gladly," Owen replied before taking flight. There was a moment of silence followed by a heavy thud, some cracking of bone, and two cries of pain and surprise. Owen flew back, carrying two werewolves with him. Both had the rust-tinted fur of the man-eaters. One showed signs of having become a man-eater fairly recently, the fur showing the barest hint of a rust tint. _Perfect_, Lejule thought, _an easy conversion_. The other was a grizzled veteran. Dedicated to the cause and impossible to convert. Lejule knew he would have to kill the elder werewolf. Before he could say or do anything, Lejule smelled humans, at least six separate scents.

"You three, change to human form and head down to my basement. Don't come out until I say to." Lejule walked into the house after the others and moved to grab his nodachi. Then he reconsidered. He walked to his bedroom, opened the closet, and smacked the back of the closet. The secret panel he had hit fell back and slid into the wall. Behind it was an assortment of bludgeoning weapons and firearms. He reached in and pulled out his ironwood staff. Measuring six feet long and two inches in diameter, the staff was very large, weighing in at seventeen pounds. This meant that, with enough force behind it, the staff could decapitate the target. He pressed a button on the ceiling of the hidden locker and the door slid back into place. He walked to the back door and released a long, loud howl, his battle cry. "Cue dramatic music," he muttered. He then charged out toward the humans, hoping to scare them away without bloodshed. Unfortunately, these guys weren't running anytime soon. Instead, Lejule heard a gunshot and felt a bullet burrow shallowly into his thigh.

"What was that supposed to do?"

Lejule heard a concerned voice say, "Ain't silver s'posed to knock 'em out? Or just kill 'em?"

"Not at my age," Lejule muttered before leaping into the copse of trees hiding the group of humans. There, he saw four humans running away. _Good_, thought Lejule, _now to drive the others away_. He turned around to look at the remaining humans; just in time to catch several darts with his belly. He felt woozy for a moment and then he collapsed, realizing that the darts were tranquilizers. Before he could shake of the effects, a chain mail net fell over him and pinned him to the ground.

"We're going to make a pretty penny off of you."

"I would not bet on it," Lejule replied weakly. As a huge figure hulked behind the two humans, Lejule added, "In fact, your chances are batting zero."

Owen plucked both humans off the ground with almost no effort. Quartermaine, approaching from Lejule's 7 o'clock, walked over and plucked the net off with one hand, while helping Lejule to his feet with the other. Looking at Owen, Quartermaine said, "I feel that I was denied critical, need-to-know information. Why am I always the last to know?"

"Now we know why Lazar wants this one so badly." He indicated the two humans Owen was holding. "Let them go." Owen did so, reluctantly. Before either of the humans could run, Lejule pounced on them and pinned them to the ground. Lejule said, in the most menacing voice he could muster, "Listen closely. Leave and forget what you have seen here."

"We won't be allowed to forget."

When Lejule gave a questioning look, the second human added, "A Green Beret ordered us to capture a resident from the, as he called it, 'werewolf community' here in Trenton."

"You're not here for a specific werewolf?"

"You were the first we saw, so we went for you."

Lejule began to laugh. "If you just wanted a werewolf, you could have just asked." He got up, unpinning the humans. "I'd be able to get you one within forty–eight hours. Komm mit. I have something to show you."

He led the humans into his basement and saw the two man-eaters slowly and groggily get up off the floor. He grabbed the elder's muzzle and smashed the werewolf's head into the wall, knocking it out again. "You can have that one." Lejule said, pointing to the now-unconscious werewolf. As they heaved the wolf to its feet, Lejule said, "I will ask one of my werewolves to escort you to your rendezvous site. Quartermaine, if that wolf tries anything, deck 'im." With those words, he was off to find one of his strongest werewolves, hoping that she was not parting, again. Instead, as he neared her residence, he heard:

"Roll on up for my price is down. Come on in for the best in town."

"Typical of that nun," Lejule muttered as he walked up to and knocked on the door. The song stopped and three heavy footsteps, indicating that she was in her wolf form, marched to the door. When she opened the door, he craned his neck to look into her face, as he always had to. "Good evening, Meike."

Looking down into Lejule's face, Meike replied, "Was mollst du mit mich heute nacht?"

"I would like to ask a favor of you," Lejule stated in as humble a voice as he could muster.

"Ja?" she asked, cocking her head in genuine interest. This was the first time he had asked a favor of her.

"I need an escort to take a batch of humans to a shack two miles outside of Princeton…"

"…And you thought of me first. How nice. Why do they need an escort?"

"They're transporting a wolf."

"Say no more." She walked to her bedroom and shut the door. A few minutes later, she came out, dressed in her old habit. He saw clearly, by size alone, that she was still in wolf form.

"One last thing. They're to meet with a Green Beret and hand off the wolf. When you see the shack, wait by the window and try to stay out of sight. If everything goes smoothly, then come back and report. If not, deal with the problem and then come and report."

"Ja, Herr Lejule," she replied as they began to walk back to his home.

Lejule found it amusing that she still pronounced his name in the German style. He said nothing on the subject as he had given up correcting her more than a millennium ago. They arrived at the house, introductions were made, and the small expedition set off. Lejule then turned his attention to the younger man-eater, currently huddled in a corner.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Ethan Oliver." The younger wolf did his best to sound defiant, but he looked, smelled, and sounded scared to Hell and back. Not that Lejule blamed him.

"Ethan Oliver," Quartermaine repeated.

"Yeah, that's my name. You got a problem with it?" The young wolf was able to put more defiance and some snide into his voice, but he still reeked with fear, his voice quavering a little.

"Not at all. Not at all."

"Ethan. How would you like to join my forces?"

"Go to Hell!" The fear had left Ethan, replaced with pure fury.

Lejule chuckled, "I figured you'd say that, so here's your other option. How would you like to die?"

The young wolf's fear returned with a vengeance. "Die?"

"Yes. I can't let you go. You'd kill more people. Nor can I afford to place you under a 24/7 guard. Either you join this community…" He leaned in closer. "…Or I kill you. And I have no remorse for your kind."

The young wolf thought for a moment, and Lejule could see the moment that Ethan's spirit broke. Finally, Ethan broke the silence. "What must I do?"

Lejule's face brightened in an instant. "There are two simple rules for you to follow."

"They are?"

"Do not kill a member of the community."

"And never kill and eat a human ever again. For the beef-eaters, it's 'Never kill and eat humans,'" Quartermaine finished.

"Thank you. Make your choice, Ethan," Lejule stated flatly and neutrally.

"Fine. I'll join your community."

"Excellent. Quartermaine, show him the ropes."

As Lejule walked out, Quartermaine turned toward Ethan and laughed at the latter's expression. "I had the same reaction when I was converted."

Ethan looked at Quartermaine with a look of awe. "You ate humans?"

Quartermaine nodded solemnly. "Yes. Thousands of humans perished because of my teeth. I have regretted that 930-year reign of terror ever since Lejule converted me."

Ethan was silent for a moment and then he asked, "Which home do I get?"

"Well, no vacant homes are currently available in the community, so you'll live with me for the time being."

"Okay. Let's get me acquainted with my new home."

They walked out of Lejule's house and ran to Quartermaine's house ten blocks away. When they got in, Ethan (being a kid of the 80s) was shocked by how old everything looked. One of the oddest things he saw looked like a brown wooden box with two speakers, a plastic stick, and a heavy plastic disk built into it. As Ethan leaned in closer to try to discern the device's function, he heard Quartermaine say, "Leave it." Ethan spun around, expecting to see Quartermaine's face mere inches away from his own. Instead, Quartermaine was on the other side of the room, organizing files with his back to Ethan. He continued, "If you want to listen to some music, go right ahead. If not, don't touch."

"What is this?"

"Don't you know a record player when you see one?"

"A what?"

Quartermaine looked up from his work and turned toward Ethan, a shocked expression on his face. "You just made me feel reeaally old with those two words." He walked to a cabinet with a metal plate reading "Musikschrank" nailed to its door, changing to human form as he walked. He opened the cabinet and flipped through the contents. "Ah, here we are," He said as he pulled out a square piece of cardboard. He tilted the cardboard and a large black disk rolled out. He walked over to the record player, put the disk onto the player's disk, placed one end of the "stick" on the edge of the upper disk, and turned the player on. A couple of seconds later, a song started.

After a moment, Ethan said, "I know that song."

"Like most Americans, you probably heard a snippet here and there in films and television."

"But I don't know its name."

"Again, like most Americans," he sighed as he went to lie on the couch next to the record player. "Wagner's _Flight of the Valkyries_."

When the song ended, Ethan uttered, "Beautiful."

Quartermaine nodded. "Indeed it is." He got up, lifted the player's needle off of the record, turned off the player, and placed the record back from whence it came. He pulled out a CD labeled "Linkin' Park: Minutes to Midnight" and walked over to the boom box on the other side of the couch from the record player. He placed the disk into the boom box's CD player. As he began to select a track, Quartermaine said, "This is my favorite song."

The first line was obscured by Quartermaine's words, but Ethan could tell that the song was "What I've Done." "Why is it your favorite?"

"It flawlessly captures the wishes of every repentant man-eater."

They spent the remaining hour of the night by explaining their personal histories, with Quartermaine starting. Ethan's turn came as the sun rose and he was forced to take his human form. When Quartermaine saw that Ethan's human form was a teenager, he shouted, "Good God! How bluidy young were you when you were turned?"

"Seventeen. When I saw my friend turn into a werewolf, he turned me to keep his secret."

While they talked, Meike returned and reported that the prisoner transfer went flawlessly.


	4. I Beg to Differ

**One Last Battle, Ch 4: I beg to differ…**

Lazar looked at the latest soon-to-be victim and smiled. The CEO standing in the pit below Lazar had deployed his golden parachute and retired at the beginning of the recession. Now, one of Lazar's werewolves would deliver his punishment.

Lazar's smile broadened as he thought about what Lejule's reaction to what was about to happen would be. Lazar could almost smell the despair Lejule would experience because he could not help this human. "The pansy doesn't get it. Natural selection. Eventually, the weaker species dies to make room for the stronger. Humans are weak. Werewolves are strong. Nature's choice is clear. Humans are to die so werewolves may flourish. If humans continue to exist in their large numbers, they will hunt us down and destroy us whenever and wherever they can." He straightened up from leaning on the pit railing and began to walk toward the mine entrance. "To make matters worse, one of my werewolves has gone AWOL. If he reveals himself to the world, Humans will lock themselves in their homes, depriving us of the ability to kill Humans without hundreds more taking notice." To diffuse his anger, he punched the wall, feeling the twin crunches of stone and bone breaking. He left it there for a minute, relishing the feeling of shattered bone in his grasp. He pulled his hand back when he felt the bones finish mending themselves, and he licked the blood off of his knuckles. He savored the coppery taste of the blood mixed with the salty taste of the mine dust. He then turned his thoughts back to Lejule and each fight they had had. He ran his fingers through his fur, feeling every scar and remembered the moments when he received each one. "Pansy or not, Lejule manages to be a major roadblock to my plans. For every successful hunt my men have, I hear of at least two that fail because of Lejule and his friends." He walked out into the morning sunlight and saw his second-in-command, Pilate, running up the hill towards the mine entrance. "Good 'morrow. What news?"

When Pilate arrived, his face was very dour. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but our attempts to catch Lejule's descendant have ended with a 100 percent casualty rate. Peska's body was found in a New York alley, beheaded. Minish was found with the back of his neck sliced cleanly by a bite. Ethan and Picolo just disappeared in the vicinity of Trenton." He looked at the ground. "What are your orders, master?"

Before he could reply, Lazar caught a flash of white in the woods below and took off after it. He pounced and found himself face-to-face with a relatively young werewolf bearing a white flag. "An emissary of Lejule," Lazar muttered to himself. To the wolf, he said, "I grant you safe passage for the duration of your visit." He helped the wolf to its feet and began to lead it toward his personal quarters. When they arrived, Lazar sat on the throne he had carved out of the stone wall at the back of the room and asked the wolf, "What is your business here?"

"I have a message from Lejule."

"Proceed."

The wolf cleared its throat before reciting:

"'Most Esteemed Brother,

I hope this letter finds you well, though I know you will be reeling from the loss of your warriors this past day. Because of your decreasing, already lesser, numbers, one would demand your surrender. However, I already know that you will fight to the last. So, I propose that we do just that. If you wish to destroy the last of my bloodline, you will have to fight for your chance. Come and try to stake your claim, and I will meet you with equal force.

I had once had hope that we could resolve this issue peacefully, but I know that neither of us is willing to compromise. This, a clash of armies and the shedding of blood, will be the final negotiator of peace. Where it all began, so shall it end 133629 lunar cycles later.

Your esteemed brother,

Lejule

What is your response?"

Lazar pondered for a moment before answering, "Tell Lejule that I will meet him and I will enjoy breaking him, his followers, and his seed."

As the emissary departed, Lazar got up and walked over to the wall to the left of the throne. He began scratching a map of the intended battlefield as he remembered it onto the wall. Once the map was complete, he began to scratch out a battle plan, muttering to himself as he worked. His first plan involved splitting his force in a pincer. Thirty percent of his men would take the left flank, thirty percent would take the right, and the remaining forty percent would head straight up the middle. However, if Lejule set up pickets, he could get enough warning to split his forces in response. Half of Lejule's force would be more than sufficient to crush one flanking force. Lejule would be able to destroy both of Lazar's flanks and have enough men to flank Lazar's main body. Lazar shook his head, moved over two feet, and scratched a new map and battle plan. This time, Lazar planned a massed assault. He was pleased with the brutal simplicity of this plan, evidenced by his wagging tail. The blade formation would cleave Lejule's line in two. _Divide and conquer_, Lazar thought. He walked around the mine, looking for his generals. He trusted their advice, especially considering that the seven of them had a combined service history spanning more than two hundred armies in campaigns ranging from Troy to Iraq. Four of them were easy to find, gathered as they were around the Butchering Pit. When he walked up to the railing, Lazar found his, as far as recruiting order went, sixth general; Elenore Downey. While Lejule had only just gotten confirmation of other types of were-animals, Lazar had known for centuries. Elenore was a werejaguar. She and the former CEO were currently going at it tooth and nail. One item Lazar noticed was the amount of power behind each rare blow the CEO landed. Lazar then realized the source of the human's strength. _A werewolf's son_. His suspicion was confirmed when the human, after stunning Elenore, shouted, "God! If you ever loved me, help me now!" He then began the transformation, revealing an interesting trait of the descendants of werewolves.

If they are born of the pairing of a werewolf and a human, they can become a werewolf any year they like, with transformation times, colorations, and power all nearly identical to those of the werewolf parent. However, when a werewolf is born of two other werewolves, they gain a significant amount of power around puberty, the boost in power equal to that of a werewolf the mean age of the parents.

The new werewolf flexed his muscles and said, "Nice." It wasted no time testing the new body's abilities, leaping out of the pit and running for the mine exit. He had nearly made it when a scaly arm, quite black of hue, thrust itself across his path. Unable to stop in time, he crashed into and through the arm, breaking it. As the wolf shot out of the mine, the owner of the arm stepped into view: a were Komodo dragon.

"Misserable prat," it said as it clutched its broken arm.

Lazar chuckled. "A word of advice. Drop that upper class New York accent. In your bestial form, it makes you sound like a dork."

"Ssorry, ssir," Sakkrhin, Lazar's seventh general, said with a bow.

"As you were."

"Yessir."

Lazar looked around the area. "Anyone know where Pilate got off to?"

"Right here," came Pilate's voice from behind Lazar.

Rather than jump, start, or show any sign of surprise, Lazar simply sighed and said, "You're the only one I know who can sneak up on me. Why?"

"I'll never tell," Pilate replied in a mischievous tone.

Lazar changed his tone, making it more serious. "Come. All of you. We have a war to finish."

They walked into Lazar's quarters and began to study the maps and battle plans Lazar had scratched into the wall. Pilate, Sakkrhin, and two of the other werewolf generals gave their support to the massed assault. Downey and the remaining generals favored a variant of the flanking plan: increase the size of each flanking force to half of the total force Lazar would have.

"Majority rules. We will go straight up the middle." To address Elenore's concerns, he added, "We can always split our force in mid-charge if we need to."

"Don't come crying to me when you lose this battle," Elenore retorted as she walked out of the room.

"Downey," Lazar reprimanded. In response, she flipped him the bird as she walked out of sight. He was about to yell after her when he heard a hissed "Ahem." He turned and asked, "What is it, Sakkrhin?"

"If I may ask, where is this battlefield?"

Lazar smiled devilishly. "Pack your bags and prepare for a southern Arizona winter."

As they walked off, Lazar turned his thoughts back to Downey. They had always had differences of opinion, but now, when he needed her most, they were further divided than ever. He kneaded his brow and thought of how to smooth tensions this time.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and heard an absolutely melodious voice behind him sing, "Try not to get worried. Try not to turn on to problems that upset you. Oh, don't you know? Everything's all right. Everything's fine."

Lazar relaxed and queried, "Alyssa, how did you know that that would calm me down?"

Alyssa laughed, a sound that defied adjectives, and answered, "It's calmed you each time you've heard it for thirty years." She licked his muzzle. "Honey."

Lazar gave the werecoyote a lick in return. "I love you."

She laughed again. "As you have for nine-and-a-half millennia." She looked uncomfortable for a moment before continuing, "I have something to tell you." She opened her mouth to speak a few times, but she could not find any words to say. Instead, she grabbed his hand and held it against her bulging belly until they both felt a soft kick from inside.

Lazar, who had followed his hand with his eyes, looked into her face and asked, "Mine?"

Alyssa nodded. "Yours. All three of them."

Lazar suddenly looked fearful. "Three?"

"I went to a doctor and had one of those soni-whatsits," she said with a sly smile. Seeing Lazar's expression, she added, "Aren't you happy?"

Lazar recovered and, stroking her cheek, said, "Of course I am. It's just, this is the first time I've had to prospect of fatherhood before me and it will make me a father of three. It's a little overwhelming, that's all."  
Her countenance became one of considerate affection. "I never knew that you had never sired children."

"I never said that. I never sired a child that I stayed to be a father with." Lazar then slightly changed the topic by asking a burning question. "How long?"

"The doctor said that I must be seven months along. That translates to around three and a half months when you consider my increased metabolism. Therefore, I have around a month until I'm due."

Lazar was silent for a moment before saying, "That's great honey. I'm so proud of you."

She grasped his hand and corrected him, "Of us. They're your kids, too."

He nuzzled her belly and replied, "Too right." As he nuzzled his way toward her chin, he added, "I so love you."

"I know."

Two miles off

_He has completely lost his mind_, thought Downey. _Ignoring one of his oldest, most experienced generals and a sound flanking plan for a brute-force assault endorsed by a reptile_. "Hell. If he doesn't trust me, why should I work for him?" She continued on for several minutes. Preoccupied with her thoughts, she hadn't realized how far she had jogged until Lejule's emissary pounced on her.

"Why are you following me?"

"I didn't realize I was."

"Don't lie!" intruded a new voice, the ex-CEO's.

"She's not," reprimanded the emissary. He grabbed Elenore's hand and, pulling her to her feet, asked, "When will you return to Lazar?"

Normally, Elenore would have started to reply before the last syllable of the question had faded from earshot. Now, she opened her mouth, but found herself at a loss for words. She thought about her relationship with Lazar and realized that she had never really liked him. In fact, she almost hated him. She mulled over a possibility that she had never before considered, and then she said a word that she thought she would not say in this context, "Never."

"Never, eh? Where will you go?"

She thought for a moment and realized that there was no one she knew outside of Lazar's camp who would take her in. Except, maybe, just maybe, "Trenton?"

The emissary laughed. If you are thinking of trying to find Lejule, he won't be in Trenton."

"Where will he be?"

"Ever hear of Tombstone?"

"Who hasn't?"

Chuckling, the emissary continued, "Well, he, and therefore we, is going to a small town a few miles to the west of Tombstone called Sierra Vista. If you want to see him, we better get moving."

"How are we to get there?"

"Sierra Vista may be small, but it has an airport."

"Are you seriously considering that we use human transportation?"

"Why not?"

"Danger of exposure…Why are you laughing?"

"Sierra Vista Municipal Airport cannot handle very large planes. I'll charter a Cessna for the three of us."

"Three?"

A hate-filled chuckle reminded her that there was a second werewolf, the ex-CEO, with the emissary.

She turned to look at him and said, "I guess we got off on the wrong foot."

"Hrmph."

"We _did_ get off on the wrong foot."

"Hrmph."

She sighed. "Okay. I tried to kill you on first sight. And, I'm sorry."

"That's better. Apology accepted," he said as he patted the side of the jaguar's right shoulder. "Name's Jarvin, by the way."

"Elenore."

"Jormungand," the emissary said with an impatient edge in his voice, concluding the introductions. "We must go. Before Lazar's men realize that you will not come back of your own accord." He began to lead them off to a cabin he owned outside of Denver.

Back at the mine

Lazar sat bolt upright, unable to even concentrate on the "man's basic need" that only a woman could provide. As he swung his legs so that he was sitting on the edge of the stone bed (He had long ago gotten used to sleeping on bare rock.), Alyssa sat up and laid her paw concernedly on Lazar's shoulder. "What are you thinking about?"

"I have a dilemma. The battle that my brother has planned is to occur around the same time that you are due. If I go to war, I could die and never see our children grow up."

"Then don't."

"Lejule is seconded only by me in sheer power. I'm the only one who can defeat him. If I do not go, we will lose and I will be branded a coward who feared for his own life and be held responsible for the loss."

"What does your heart say is the better option?"

"My heart yearns for war."

"I will come with you. You will need the support."

"I'd fear for your welfare."

"Try not to get worried. Try not to turn on to problems that upset you. Oh, don't you know? Everything's all right, everything's fine. And we want you to sleep well tonight. Let the world turn without you tonight. If we try, we'll get by, so forget all about us tonight," she sang. She grabbed his chin and pulled him into a passionate kiss. "You needn't worry about me. Your brother, however misguided the dog is, still has a sense of honor. He wouldn't dare harm me when I'm like this." She pointed at her somewhat bloated belly to emphasize her point.

Inside Lazar's mind, thoughts were occurring, with one dominating his concentration. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that earlier?"

He jumped up off the bed and was about to run out of the room when Alyssa grabbed his hand and asked, "What is it?"

"Time to turn the tide of the battle, permanently, to my favor." With that, he left to find Pilate. He found the latter frantically trying to research what a Southern Arizona winter was like. So deep in his studies was Pilate that he did not notice Lazar's approach until the latter laid his hand on the back of Pilate's shoulder, eliciting a start from Pilate. "We're even, for today."

Pilate laughed, "That we are."

Looking over Pilate's shoulder at his friend's research, Lazar said, "Don't worry yourself, old friend. I have a more important task for you."

"Name it."

"Contact all of our European followers…"

"The Russians, too?"

"Especially the Russians, and tell them to come to the city of Tucson, Arizona. Tell them that they are not allowed to harm any of Lejule's wolves until I say they can."

"Yes, sir."

As Pilate departed, Lazar gave a "Good luck" pat that landed right beside Pilate's tail. In response to the questioning stare from Pilate, Lazar simply smiled; not out of guilt but pleasure. Pilate returned the smile and left to perform his task. "I hope you like death, Lejule, for you shall receive it in spades. I will make you pay for each werewolf you have murdered. I shall make you beg for mercy. Ah, yes. I can see it now. Once your rabble of wolves has been exterminated to the last and you have been beaten and incapacitated, I will tear your son limb from limb and force you to watch. I will then tear the flesh from your bones, rip your teeth from their sockets, tear your claws off, put your eyes out and, finally, snap your neck. Revenge. Oh, how sweet the taste."

At an airport outside of Denver

Elenore looked around, unsure of what to do.

Jarvin, sensing her anxiety, laid his arm across her shoulders, comforting her.

Jormungand, having watched this small exchange, shook his head. _They were trying to kill each other at lunch. Now, they're boyfriend and girlfriend_.

"Southwest Airlines flight 4 to Sierra Vista is now boarding on the tarmac. Please enjoy your flight."

"Let's go, you two."

As they got up, Jarvin turned to Elenore and whispered, "When we get on the plane, I'll lead you to our seats, we sit down, and we stay quiet. Whatever you do, make sure that you don't do anything that a human would think weird, like taking your jaguar form on the plane."

They walked out to their plane, a Cessna Citation Excel. When they boarded, Elenore and Jarvin immediately noticed that the passengers and staff of this aircraft were not normal. For one thing, two of them were in wolf form. The others regarded Elenore with a look of hostility.

In response t the questioning stares from his two companions, Jormungand stated, "Welcome to my jet." To the werewolves, he added, "Keep your human forms until we're in the air. Lejule does not want us revealing ourselves to the humans as a whole, yet."

With a sullen sigh, both werewolves shifted to their human forms, and everyone sat down as per the captain's request. After takeoff, all the passengers who could shift into their bestial forms did so, revealing three more werewolves aside from the two from earlier, Jormungand, and Jarvin. Eventually, all of the passengers succumbed to boredom and fell asleep for the duration of the flight.


	5. You're not in Kansas, anymore

One Last Battle Ch. 5: You're not in Kansas, anymore.

Libby Army Airfield, Fort Huachuca, Arizona

_Home, sweet home_, Lejule thought as he stepped out of the C-47B onto the tarmac of the airfield. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, identifying each scent in the air. Jet fuel, gasoline, cordite, a family each of javelina and white-tailed deer, ravens, ocotillo, and mesquite trees, just to name a few scents. Lejule looked around the airfield and saw a familiar figure approaching. In response, Lejule snapped to attention and saluted. "Lieutenant Colonel," Lejule began, but he stopped as he took notice of the man's rank insignia. "Sorry, Colonel. Congratulations on the promotion, sir."

"And you haven't aged a day, Captain Wulfson," the man laughed in return.

Lejule half-turned and indicated Owen. "Colonel Faulkner, meet my son, Owen."

Shaking Owen's hand, Faulkner replied, "Good to meet the son of such an outstanding soldier."

"Thank you, sir," Owen replied. "I'm proud to have such a neat Dad."

Lejule took Faulkner aside and whispered, "I have something to show you," while pointing toward the C-47.

They walked into the plane, and Owen waited for Faulkner's inevitable reaction to what Lejule was about to do. "3…2…1."

"Holy crap!" A pause. "That's why you were so good."

"Yes. But now, I need your help." He then outlined the battle plan he had drawn up on the flight over. "Our main body will be here. We will deploy picket lines here and here. When they spend a clip, the first line will pull back to here, the second line to here and the main body will charge. Hopefully, the pickets will have disrupted Lazar's formation enough to make victory quick and efficient. It all depends on how many warriors Lazar brings to this battle." There was a brief pause, only a second or so, followed by the rustle of cloth.

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"For a young werewolf, like hell. For one my age, the change goes too quickly to hurt."

From the tone of voice, Lejule had changed to his human form and, by the rustle of cloth, gotten dressed.

They stepped out of the plane and Faulkner said, "I'll show you a spot where you can hide tomorrow night."

"Thank you for the offer, but we can deal with the full moon night."

"Dad, we don't know this town. We should accept the offer."

Meike stepped off the plane and said, "Der Junge hat eine gut Idee, Herr Lejule."

Lejule sighed. "Show us where you had in mind, Colonel."

"Happy to oblige, Captain."

Sierra Vista Municipal Air Port, Sierra Vista, Arizona

"How will we know that it's him?" Elenore asked as they got off the plane.

"I'll know." Jormungand looked around and yelled, "Taxi!"

A van with the words "Transportation Express" painted on the side pulled up to the curb. Jarvin opened the side door and, sweeping his arm to indicate the vehicle's interior, said, "Ladies first."

Elenore climbed into the van and Jarvin jumped in behind her. As he slid into the front seat next to her, their lips met.

They were about to carry their activities to the next level when the driver said, "Hey! No lovey-dovey back there. This isn't 'The Love Machine.'"

"Fine," Jarvin and Elenore conceded, and they settled for holding hands.

The other werewolves climbed into the van and Jormungand closed the doors and climbed into the front passenger seat.

"Where to?"

"The Post Exchange."

With a nod, the driver was off. They arrived in a few minutes, and, as the other passengers piled out of the van, Jormungand tried to pay the cabbie.

"How much do I owe you?" Jormungand asked as he pulled out his wallet.

The cabbie laid his hand on the wallet, pushing it back toward Jormungand, and replied, "No charge for fellow shape shifters." Jormungand looked questioningly into the cabbie's eyes, and a pair of black reptilian eyes answered back. In response, Jormungand flashed his golden wolf eyes.

He stepped out and said, "Who's hungry?" while pointing into the main PX building. They went in and ate a pleasant lunch, and then Jormungand pulled out his cell phone and dialed. "Yeah, hi. Yeah, what's your twenty? Yeah. I'll be there. Bye." He turned to the others and said, "We have to move."

As they walked out, Jarvin asked, "Where are we going?"

Jormungand pointed toward a hilltop. "See those picnic tables?"

"Yep."

"We're heading up there and then up to the top of the mountain beside it."

"Seems like a long walk," Elenore said dryly.

"Need a lift?"

They all looked and saw that the cabbie had not left the area.

"I can take you up to that picnic area, but we'll have to walk from there."

As they climbed into the van, Elenore asked, "Why are you helping us like this?"

"Mainly, I wish to meet your alphas."

"Whatever."

As they drove off, Jormungand asked the cabbie, "What species are you?"

"Sinaloan Milk Snake."

Jormungand nodded as if that explained everything. "Rare type, I would think."

The rest of the drive was accomplished in silence. When they arrived and piled out of the van, Jormungand looked out over Fort Huachuca and sighed, remembering the last time that he was up here: 4th of July, 2007, watching the fireworks. He sighed again.

The cabbie looked around and said, "Travel up the mountain would be easier if we took our animal forms."

"We don't risk exposure, yet. We walk up to the top of the mountain as humans. Only after we get there can we take our bestial forms."

"Fine."

They walked up the mountain in silence with the exception of Jormungand and the cabbie, the latter asking question after question and the former answering each question. When they reached the summit, a gray werewolf with a pale rust stripe greeted them. Jormungand nodded a greeting to his fellow former Viking.

"Come. Lejule is waiting," Quartermaine said as he began to walk toward the center of the camp. At the center was what was once a roaring fire that a white werewolf was meditating in front of.

"What is it, Quartermaine?"

"Jormungand has arrived."

Lejule stood and walked over to greet Jormungand. His expression, however, changed from relieved to serious as two unfamiliar scents hit his nose. He motioned to each werewolf in front of him, silently ordering each to step aside in turn. In a minute, only Elenore and the cabbie stood before Lejule, who walked toward the pair. He stopped and queried the cabbie, "Who and what are you?"

"I am Hister, a serpent."

"Show me."

Hister stripped himself of his clothes until he was dressed only in a black t-shirt with "Veteran" written across in white block-serif letters. He knelt and concentrated on making the change. He revealed that weresnakes transform at a constant rate and that a weresnake's transformation is far less painful than a werewolf's. It started at Hister's head, his face lengthening and vertically compressing into the face of a snake. From the tips of his jaws, black scales began to spread. When the scales passed his eyes, they changed color, becoming creamy white. The scales continued in this manner to the top of his neck, where another band of black scales began. At the base of his neck, the scales disappeared underneath his shirt. They reappeared where the t-shirt's sleeves ended. These scales were somewhere between bright crimson and blood red in color. Underneath the scales, the musculature changed from average to well toned. The scales became black as they covered his hands. Claws formed at the tip of each finger. "And the pain begins… now," Hister muttered the instant before he began to grunt and groan in pain. The cause of his pain was obvious to Elenore as she stood behind him. The skin over Hister's posterior tore itself open and Elenore could see his pelvis reshaping itself into an extension of his spinal column. When the pain passed, Hister wavered for a couple of seconds before falling forward onto his chest. The instant he hit the ground, his legs dissolved into pure energy. The energy very quickly condensed into a twenty-four-foot-long serpentine lower body. Scales spread downward from Hister's waist, quickly covering the rest of Hister's new body. The scales' color pattern consisted of three-foot bands of the same odd red colored scales sandwiching one-foot-wide groups of black-cream-black bands of scales. A small shriek of pain, movement underneath Hister's skin, and the fact that his shirt was getting tighter told everyone that his entire non-skeletal internal structure (organs, muscles and the like) was rearranging itself. In a few more seconds, the transformation was complete, and Hister "stood" panting as the pain subsided in entirety. "Convinced?"

Lejule said nothing. It had only been a minute since Hister had begun his transformation. Lejule began walking around the serpent, silently studying it. He reached out to stroke its scales at various locations. The last stroke ended with Lejule grabbing Hister's muzzle and pulling the latter nose-to-nose with him. Lejule saw fear flicker through Hister's eyes, quickly replaced by a confident mask that failed to hide a silent plea for mercy, and laughed grimly. "I can see that you have at least some of the temperament of a warrior." Lejule loosened his grip, releasing Hister, and backed away three paces before dropping into a fighting stance. "If you want to stay with us, you had better be able to fight." He beckoned with his hand. "Show me what skills you have." Hister and Lejule began to circle each other. After forming a perfect semi-circle, Hister whipped his tail toward Lejule, intending to entangle the latter. Lejule, however, was not taken by surprise. In fact, he was expecting the maneuver and caught the tail with ease. He wound the tail around his arm and, using that anchor point, whipped the snake into a tree. Shoving the coils off of his arm, Lejule said, "Predictability. A deplorable trait for a warrior. I will be far more merciful than any real enemy." He settled back into a fighting stance. "Again."

The serpent gathered its lower body beneath its torso and "stood" back up. "I had not thought myself predictable." He whipped his tail at Lejule again. This time, the last foot or two was balled up. Just outside of Lejule's reach, the tail-tip unfurled in the same manner as a sling, unleashing a torrent of dust, dirt, and gravel into Lejule's face. With Lejule thus distracted, Hister lunged and clamped his jaws down on Lejule's shoulder, forming an anchor point from which Hister could wind coils around Lejule, and he did so with frightening speed.

"Well done. Adaptation. A good trait for a warrior." He patted Hister's muzzle. "You can stay with us. Jormungand, show him around." As Jormungand walked off, Hister slithering in toe, Lejule walked up to Elenore and said, "And you, Mademoiselle?"

"Elenore Downey. Jaguar."

"A rather terse response from someone with your beauty," Lejule replied as he stroked her cheek. He walked to her six o'clock, maneuvering his hand such that he traced a path from her cheek to her shoulder, which he laid his hand upon. He leaned in and whispered into her ear, "Show me."

Her transformation was far rapid than the snake's, occurring in less time than it takes to say "transformation." Fur sprouted, her face, hands, and feet morphed into those of a cat, a tale grew out of her now-furry bum, and she bulked up until she was 6'5" and 228 pounds. Lejule still towered over her, but not by nearly as much.

Lejule began to get into a fighting stance when Jarvin stepped between Lejule and Elenore. "I can attest to her ability." He pulled the side of his shirt collar aside, revealing a set of claw marks spanning almost half his chest from the skin above his heart to his shoulder. "Personally."

"You love her."

Jarvin was taken aback. He had not thought himself easily readable. In fact, he thought of himself as a most cryptic person. "How'd you kn-know?" he managed to stutter a moment later.

"How does one movie phrase it? Ah, yes. 'The boy's pheromone levels suggest he wants to mate with the female.'"

A wave of laughter rippled through the assembled werewolves as Jarvin turned a deep shade of crimson.

Lejule lifted his leg out of the snow and scratched at the snow that clung to it. "Six inches. Deep enough." He looked out at the werewolves present and said, "Undress, change, and try to get some sleep. We will stay on this mountaintop in wolf, bestial, form for the next 48 hours. After that, we head into Mexico for training." He walked back to the center of the camp and lay down, all but disappearing into the snow. A very light gray werewolf walked over and lay down next to Lejule. "Hello, Viridian. How did you know that I needed company?"

"I've been with you for the past nine millennia. I would like to think that I could read you after that significant amount of time."

Lejule laughed. "I guess that you should be able to after that long." A soft crunch of snow announced the arrival of a third person to the meeting at the heart of the camp. Lejule lifted his head to see who the new arrival was, and then he rested his chin back on his wrists as Elenore sat down in front of him. "Say whatever you wish to say. This is America, after all, not National Socialist Germany."

"I was talking with Quartermaine…"

"Yes?"

"…And he mentioned that he had changed his name when he changed sides."

"That is correct."

"So, I was wondering…"

"…If you could change your name, too." At her nod, he continued, "What name did you have in mind?"

"Xena."

Lejule thought for a moment before replying, "To my knowledge, tat name is available." He stood, shook the snow out of his fur, and, shaking her hand, said, "Welcome to the beef-eaters, Xena."

5 days later

"Home. I have not seen it in millennia." The red werewolf pointed. "That waterfall is smaller than I remember."

A female werecoyote walked up and laid a hand on his shoulder. "It's been nearly ten thousand years, Lazar. Of course the area is rather different."

"I know, Alyssa. However, I did not expect this much difference. The trees here used to be as tall as any ten men. Now, there are few more than twice my height." He punched through the trunk of a nearby Palo Verde. "The trees were tougher then, too."

"The trees are not weaker." She pulled his arm toward her and out of the tree. "You have gotten stronger. I have been by your side and watched as you grew stronger with each passing year. She placed his hand on her swollen belly. "Now that strength is to be gifted to a new generation."

"Let us hope I live to see this generation mature," Lazar replied grimly as he looked at his feet.

Alyssa grabbed his chin and pulled him into eye contact. "You will. Our children will see and hear your exploits forever."

"Will they hear of my exploits from me? Or you?"

"Stop being so pessimistic. I've known you for over nine thousand years. You are unbeaten in combat."

"And how long have you known Lejule?" At her ashamed countenance, he continued, "I thought so. He, too, is undefeated."

"Then hand him his first, and last, defeat. When he is dead, there will be no one who can stop you."

Lazar was about to speak when a lesser werewolf, one of Lazar's scouts, sprinted to stand beside Lazar. As he was out of breath, the scout simply pointed back the way he had just come. As Lazar looked in that direction, a large white werewolf pounced toward the group. It noticed the now-huge group near its intended landing zone and threw its arms "down" to flip itself forward and adjust its trajectory, landing less than a pace from Lazar. "Hello, Lazar," it said with well-masked malice.

"Hello, little brother. Been a while since we last saw each other, eh?"

"Hastings, 1066, as I recall."

Lazar thought for a moment before replying, "I think that that was the last time we saw each other." He chuckled, "Long time, little brother."

"Not long enough, young puppy," Lejule replied in the tribal dialect. The last two words formed the deepest insult one werewolf could say to another. It insinuated inexperience, weakness, arrogance, stupidity, and, worst of all, a youthful, naïve desire to please everyone in the area. None of those apply accurately to Lazar. The insult hit straight home as Lazar became irate and charged. Lejule stopped him with a punch that landed squarely on Lazar's breastbone, breaking it cleanly in half. Lejule followed the punch with an upper knee to Lazar's gut, doubling the latter over. Lejule stepped back and, before Lazar could recover, delivered an uppercut that sent Lazar flying. "You always were quicker to anger and slower in wits than me," Lejule taunted as he turned away. "You haven't changed one bit," he added before crouching and then leaping into the distance.

Lazar, hoping that the telepathic link had not broken over the years, thought back, _You just dug your own grave, Lejule._

_No. I dug yours, Lazar._

Lazar was both pleased and confused by the response. His confusion stemmed from two reasons. One, it meant that Lejule had been able to monitor Lazar's thoughts for eternity. That led to the second reason. Why hadn't Lejule used the thought monitoring to draw Lazar into a trap thousands of years ago?

_My honor would not allow it._

Lazar scoffed as best he could through his broken jaws. _Your precious honor. Did you know that your inaction caused the death of at least a billion humans?_

_Would you have killed me when we last met?_

_No. You hadn't pissed me off, then._

_Until now, I was just disappointed in you. Now, I'm pissed off. You tried to end my dynasty._

_I tried to kill one man who was descended from you. Surely you spawned thousands of pups since we became immortal._

_I only sired one. Grumsh._

_You remained faithful 9900 years after she was definitely dead?_

_Yes. You are not deserving of such love._

_As if you are, you cannibalistic murderer._

There was no answer. Lejule was either out of range or ignoring Lazar, the latter being a likely conclusion.

_Run all you want, Lejule. It won't do you any good. I will still kill you, you coward. Before I kill you, however, I will subject you to the same amount of pain all of Hell can deal. When this is over, a new species will emerge as the dominant species of Earth. Werewolves will reign, unchecked, unchallenged, killing at will. Werewolves from my packs. Shame you won't live to see that golden age of werewolves. You must die for the golden age to happen._

_The golden age of werewolves ended the day you killed our people. Goodbye._


	6. Training Day 1, Part 1

**One Last Battle Ch. 6: Training Day 1; Part 1**

"Again."

Owen charged, flapped his wings, took to the sky, and dropped down, intending to deliver a hammer blow that would crush Lejule's entire left side. Lejule spun out of the way of the fists and, as soon as it was at his eye level, rammed his own left fist into Owen's upper knee. It bent to an unnatural angle for a second before snapping. As Owen fell to one knee, Lejule continued his rotation and smashed his elbow into the back of Owen's head, knocking him out cold. After checking that Owen was still alive, Lejule grabbed a bucket of water by the rim, dumped the contents onto Owen's head, and tossed the bucket onto a pile consisting of ten cups, three bottles, a barrel, and another bucket that had been used to revive Owen the first time Lejule had knocked him out. Owen awoke with a start.

"How do you keep doing that?" he asked breathlessly.

Lejule patted Owen on the shoulder and said, "Relax, Owen. You'll learn. After all, I've been training for ten thousand years for this battle. You've been training for, what, five days? You'll learn. Remember: no one becomes a good warrior in even a fortnight."

"I know. It's just that I want to be a quality warrior like you by the night of the battle."

"And you will. Be it by fist or by sword, you will learn to fight well, though I wish you did not have to."

"Why?"

"War is hell. Have you ever seen the man fighting beside you get crushed into paste by a boulder?"

"No…"

"How about dodging an arrow only to watch it bury itself in the face of the soldier who was marching behind you?"

"Um…"

"Or watched as comrade after comrade drops dead from poison gas and disease while you just get sick for a couple of days before making a full recovery? Or see an artillery shell…"

"I get it. You hate war. However, if you hate it so much, why do you keep fighting?"

"Because, my son," he said as he stroked a line from between Owen's eyes to the base of the back of his ears. "I have some things to fight for." He laid his hands on Owen's shoulders. "You, humanity, peace. All are worth the cost I pay mentally."

Owen was silent for a moment before tapping his knee and stating, "My knee has healed and I'm ready for my next beating."

Lejule shook his head as he walked up to a tree. "I thought we'd try a different facet of melee combat." He jumped up into the tree and grabbed and ripped off two branches, one of which was smaller than the other. He dropped the smaller branch and raked his claws along the larger branch, hewing away all of the twigs and smaller branches. He tossed the branch to Owen and repeated the process with the smaller branch, which he kept for himself. Wielding it as a club, he said, "En guard."

"'You know this won't be fair to you, old man.'"

Lejule chuckled and completed the allusion, "'Humor me.'"

They circled for the better part of a minute, each examining the other for weaknesses. Then, to force Lejule's hand, Owen stepped on an unstable rock, forcing himself to stumble. Lejule took the bait and charged. He spun to swing his branch into the side of Owen's head. Owen brought up his own branch and thrust his fist forward, simultaneously blocking Lejule's blow and punching Lejule in the face.

As he reeled, Lejule praised Owen for the simple yet effective maneuver. He wiped off the blood from his nose. He snorted, blowing more blood out of his nose, and asked, "Ready for Round Two?"

"More than ready."

They circled each other again. Owen considered repeating the stumbling maneuver, but he quickly discarded the idea as he realized that Lejule would not fall for it again. Owen's next idea was to withdraw into the woods and use the terrain to his advantage. He took a step back and froze as he heard an unmistakable sound. A very loud, rapid buzzing sound. A rattlesnake. No other animal could produce that sound that rapidly. Owen slowly looked over his shoulder and spied a Mojave. Normally, a snake would be of no consequence. However, rattlesnakes, and the Mojave in particular, produce potent neurotoxic venom, which attacks the nervous system. Because of the fact that were-creatures can only be killed by severe neural damage, a neurotoxin is the only type of poison effective against werewolves. Thus, Owen feared being bitten by this snake in particular.

Lejule saw and smelled Owen's fear and chuckled. He walked up to and picked up the snake, holding it out of striking range until it calmed down and did not consider the two humanoids a threat. Lejule then laid the serpent across his arm, and he stroked it as it coiled around his wrist. "It's all about mutual respect. If you respect Nature, she will respect you. Humans have mostly forgotten that most basic of rules. They have rehashed it as 'The Golden Rule,' 'Do unto others as you would have done unto you,' which most humans interpret as referring to humans, only. I've hoped for years that humans would remember the full lesson, but only the native tribes of the world, labeled 'uncivilized' by Europeans, keep that lesson in their culture." He bent down and held his wrist close to a hole in the ground that went under a large rock. As the serpent accepted the unspoken invitation, Lejule muttered, "Off you go, little one."

"You truly do have a way with animals, Lejule," intruded a new voice.

"Hello, Ethan."

"Hey, Owen."

"How's the rib?"

"Fine. Shouldn't cause any problems."

"How's your training been?"

"Quartermaine's been kicking my butt since the full moon. Yours?"

"Same story with Lejule doing the kicking."

The three of them shared a short laugh. Then Lejule asked, "What do you want Ethan? I doubt that you came just to chat."

"I was thinking of taking a run in my wolf form tonight, seeing as I won't be able to take that form for about twenty-five nights after tomorrow, and I was wondering if either of you wanted to join me."

Lejule and Owen looked at each other and, in unison, replied, "No."

"Just askin.' Sun'll set in a couple of hours. Guess I'll just run by myself," Ethan said as he backed away.

When he was out of earshot, Lejule said to Owen, "That boy's independent streak will get him into trouble one of these days."

Two and a half hours later

Ethan watched as the last vestiges of the sunset disappeared behind the mountains. Once the moon was the only thing lighting the area, Ethan began the transformation. His jaws snapped and stretched into a wolf's muzzle. His skull cracked and reshaped with a sloping forehead. His ears migrated to the top of his newly formed wolf's head and broadened into two rounded triangles. Then came one of the most painful parts of the transformation. As fur began to sprout from his skin, each hair had to push nerves out of the way, and each nerve protested being moved, sending a wave of pain straight to his brain. Then his muscles bulked up, compressing the nerves and sending a new wave of pain up each nerve. His fingernails moved, splitting the skin beneath them and causing the flesh underneath to sting until new skin grew over them and the fingernails grew into claws attached to the bone of his fingers. The waves of pain prevented him from feeling, but not from hearing, each set of metatarsals snap in half and form a new ankle. The remaining bone between the old and new ankles lengthened and split into a new tibia and fibula, and the old ankle transformed into a back-canted knee. Then his tailbone elongated until it jutted out two feet from his gluteus maximus and became covered in muscle, skin and fur. With the transformation complete, Ethan examined himself and was reminded of how long it had been since he had been forced to treat a human as prey on pain of death if he did otherwise. What reminded him was the fact that the fur on his arms and legs darkened from rust-red to the darkest of grays as it reached his hands and feet. However proud he was about the gray fur, that pride was completely eclipsed by the shame of the rust fur that showed the world that he had eaten human flesh. Even though he had been forced to, he still felt like shit each time he was reminded of the fact. Putting the thought out of his mind, he howled and began his run.

He always felt freest when he was able to run in his wolf form. So overjoyed was he that he failed to notice the terrain difference as he darted across a road. Nor did he notice the car barreling down said road. Until its bumper smashed his legs. "Fuck!"

"Oh my God! Are you alright?"

"Royal fuck," he said as a physical inspection revealed that he would not be moving an inch anytime soon. He looked up and saw a teenage girl standing over him. He tried to crawl away, but the shattered bones in his legs grated against and pinched his muscles, immobilizing him with pain. He yelped and grabbed his leg as several of the fractures became compound.

"Oh my God! We have to get you to a hospital!"

"No! I just need time," he replied as he waved off her attempt to give him aid. He lay there for a moment, and then, with a start, he realized that the girl had not moved at all. "What?"

"I find you fascinating."

"Why?" Ethan asked, frightened by the only reason he could think of.

"I find all kinds of wolves fascinating. You pique my curiosity. I'd like to get to know a werewolf better."

Ethan stared at her for a few seconds before reexamining his legs; suddenly remembering that he had forgotten to properly set the shattered bones before healing began. Thus, neither leg had healed as a functional limb. "Promise not to tell anyone, and you'll learn more about me and my kind than any human."

"With all my heart."

"Can your car get anywhere?"

"Piece of cake."

"Could you help me get into it? My legs are refusing to function."

"Sure. I'll try."

After a few minutes' struggle and a painful version of "wheelbarrow," they managed to get Ethan into the sedan's back seat. As the girl climbed back into the driver's seat, Ethan said, "By the way, I never got your name."

"Astoria, but all my friends call me Tori."

"Ethan. Pleased to meet you."

"Well, Ethan. Now that we're ready to go, where to?"

"Reservoir Hill."

"You mean that picnic area in the mountains?"

"Yes."

"And when we get there?"

"I'll take it from there."

"Whatever you say, Mr. Arrogant," Tori replied under her breath as she put the car in gear. She drove up to the hill with the radio making the only noise in the car (Ethan noted, with satisfaction, that it was tuned to K101.). When they arrived, Tori put the car in park, turned to Ethan, and asked, "Well, what now?"

"Turn off the radio." When Tori did so, Ethan unleashed the most anguished howl he could. Tori scrambled out of the car to escape the sheer piercing quality of the howl and ran straight into a pillar of scaly muscle. She looked up and found herself face-to-face with what she could only describe as a naga. She fell to the ground and tried to crawl away, but her movement was arrested by a quick coil from the naga's tail around her legs. She tugged at the coil, but it wouldn't budge. The naga loomed over her, and she cringed, waiting for it to either kill her or eat her, not that there was much difference between the two options.

"Hister. Leave that human alone," a calm yet authoritative baritone voice said slowly.

The naga uncoiled its tail from Tori's legs and slithered away. From the opposite direction, an apparition of a wolf approached out of the gloom. It slowly resolved itself into a pure white anthropomorphic wolf. "Sssorry, Lejule. She ran into me and ssstartled me."

"I know," the white werewolf replied as he laid a hand on the naga's shoulder. He then turned his head toward Tori. "As for you, why are you up here?"

Tori answered by pointing at her car. Lejule walked up to the vehicle and opened the right rear door. Inside was Ethan who looked up at Lejule with an expression that was a mix of embarrassed guilt and fear. "H-hi, Lejule."

"Oh, you incompetent puppy," Lejule reprimanded as he dragged Ethan out of the car by the latter's muzzle. Examining Ethan's shattered legs, Lejule said, "Let me guess. She ran your legs over and the bones fused improperly."

"Yeah."

Lejule sighed. "At this point, there is only one way to take care of that. I believe that we have just enough time for it." He then began barking orders. Or, rather, he did his equivalent thereof. "Meike, could you hunt down a deer? He'll need the meat. Quartermaine, bring my katana, please." As he was giving out these orders, he turned his back to Tori, revealing his stump of a tail. She did not have time to think about it, however, as Lejule asked, without turning around, "What is your name, madam?"

"What?"

"You heard."

"Tori."

Lejule walked over to and sat down beside her. "Would I be wrong in assuming that 'Tori' is short for something?"

"Astoria."

"Such a beautiful name," he commented as he ran his claws through her hair. As the tips of his claws just barely graced her scalp, he could feel her skin tingle and tense in fear. "On my honor, I will not allow harm to come to you." He looked up at a jaguaress that was standing watch and continued, "Xena? Could you take care of her? No biting. Everyone else, let's see what we can do about her car."

At that moment, a gray werewolf with a pale rust stripe walked up with a sheathed samurai sword in its hands. "You don't usually ask for your katana outside of battle. Why do you need it?"

"Surgery."

"Amputation?"

"Of fused legs."

"Ouch. What poor sucker has that problem?"  
"Ethan."

"The young wolf?"

"Yes. Played 'chicken' on a road and lost."

"I did not!" Ethan interjected.

Before she could hear more of the conversation, Tori felt a furry hand on her shoulder. She looked up and back, expecting to see another werewolf. Instead, an anthropomorphic jaguaress towered over her.

"Come, child. You don't want to see what will happen when Meike comes back with the deer."

"Why not?"

"Let's just say that it will be a bloody process to make Ethan's legs heal correctly."

"You were right. Where to?"

"Would you like me to teach you how to use a weapon?"

"I don't see a need to…" Tori began, but Xena cut her off.

"Whether you want to or not is irrelevant. The only choice you have is that of who teaches you. Me, or someone else?"

"Well, since you put it that way…"

"Good. Follow me," Xena said as she turned and began to walk away.

Tori stood, blinking in disbelief for a few seconds before following. However, she quickly learned that Xena, in her jaguar form, walked very fast. Tori had to jog to keep up and soon tired. "Could you slow down a bit?"

Xena looked back and, with an exasperated sigh, replied, "I apologize. I had forgotten how little speed and stamina you humans possess. Fortunately for you, we're here." She indicated the tiny valley they were now in.

Tori looked around and asked, "Where is 'here?'"

"Carr Canyon. Lejule told me that this is the birthplace of werewolves. In fact, that waterfall," she added as she indicated a tiny waterfall, "hides a cave. Come." She led Tori to the side of the waterfall, revealing a small tunnel roughly three feet wide by roughly six feet tall. As they walked in, Xena explained, "This cave was where werewolves were created. Now it serves," they exited the tunnel and entered a chamber filled with swords and other melee weapons, "as our armory."

Tori pointed toward the back of the chamber. "And who is that?"

Xena looked in the direction Tori was pointing and saw something wondrous. A ghostly old man was sitting on an equally ghostly chair and petting a spectral wolf. She startled, tripped, fell on her bum, and muttered something in Quechua.

"Welcome my children. There is no need to be afraid."

"Who the heck are you?"

Standing up, the man replied, "I am known by many names. To Christians, Jews, and Muslims, I am a part of God. To Native Americans north of Mexico, I am the Great Spirit. To Inca like Xena, I am Viracocha. Choose any chief god in the world, and it is most likely me in one of my forms." The wolf morphed into an anthropomorphic version. "Thank you, Loreli. I'd nearly forgotten."

Tori was about to ask what had been nearly forgotten when Loreli spoke. "You both will fight in the battle to come." Pointing at Xena, she continued, "You survive as you are. However, you will require an enormous increase in power, Astoria."

"How do you know my name?"

"We spirits know everything about everyone." She walked toward Tori, who unconsciously took a step back.

"No way. I don't want to be a beast."

"Beast?" Xena exclaimed, clearly insulted. "Beast? We are not beasts."

"Calm, Xena. She is naïve, but she will learn." She laid a handpaw on Tori's cheek. "You will not become a werewolf. At least, not the same kind of werewolf as what currently exists." As Tori recoiled, Loreli quickly added, "Nor will you become a werewolf permanently."

"How?" Xena asked.

"There is a way to make someone a werewolf temporarily, but only one werewolf cam be created in that manner at a time. I can make the transformations painless, but the acceptance or rejection of my offer is your decision."

Xena, who was now standing at the side of the chamber, interjected at Tori's hesitation, "It is a great honor for a spirit to directly offer something to a mortal. I'd take the offer if I were you."

Tori looked from one to the other in disbelief. As far as she could tell, they were advocating that she should give up her life and her humanity to become a beast. After a moment of thought, she sighed and said, "Fine. What do we have to do?"

"This," Loreli replied as her hand began to sink into Tori's cheek. "Relax. It will make the process easier." Within a minute, all of Loreli's spiritual body had followed her hand and seeped into Tori's body.

Tori's eyes closed an short-lived ecstasy as the transformation occurred. In an instant, the transformation was complete and Xena was flabbergasted. Tori opened her eyes, saw Xena's reaction, looked at her hands, and saw the reason for Xena's shock. She had indeed been transformed into a werewolf, but it was the size, fur color, and transformation speed, of the new werewolf that shocked Xena. Tori's fur was so white that it appeared to glow,-on closer inspection, it indeed did glow-and she had achieved a mere six feet in height, making her, by a foot, the shortest werewolf Xena had ever seen. "What?" Tori asked as she looked back at Xena.

"The color of a werewolf's fur indicates their power."

"And?"

"Only one werewolf comes even close to having the same amount of power that must now be running through your veins."

"Who?"

"Lejule, the oldest and strongest werewolf."

"How did Loreli do this?"

"She is the Spirit of the Wolf. She merged herself with your spirit to create a werewolf that could wield her full power," the Great Spirit explained.

"So, I'm now part spirit?"

_In a way_.

"Who said that?"

"That would be Loreli. Because of your unique bond, she can only communicate by sharing thoughts with you."

_Well then, Loreli. How long do you plan on staying in me?_

_Until the battle is over._

_And when will that be?_

_A little under a month from now._

_What'll happen when you leave?_

_You will become human again._

_In the meantime, am I stuck like this?_

No. Just tell me whenever you want to change between forms, and I'll help you change. But, for the moment, why would you? After all, you need to get used to this form by the time of the battle if you're going to survive.

Without thinking about it, she had walked out of the cave. She only noticed as the first rays of dawn filtered into the canyon. Xena walked up to Tori and laid a hand on the younger's shoulder. "I cannot teach you how to use this form. Only Lejule and Loreli can. Come."


	7. Training Day 1, Part 2

**One Last Battle Ch. 7: Training Day 1, part 2**

2 days later

"Damn it! This map's worthless!" a teenage boy as he smashed said map against the dashboard of his Wrangler. "'Fort We-gotcha,' indeed." Now, a little back-story. The reason why the kid was in this area that he was not familiar with is quite simple. "Largest collection of werewolves in centuries and I can't fucking find it." One of his friends was a werewolf, a beef-eater, of course. The teen knew because he had invited the werewolf over to play some video games, and the werewolf had forgotten that that night heralded the full moon and lost track of time. Thus, the moon rose and night fell while they were playing a "Slayer" match in Halo 2 (which the werewolf was winning), transforming the werewolf and frightening the boy. However, fascination immensely overpowered the boy's fear very quickly. They became good friends and the closest of confidants you could ever find. A week ago, the werewolf had left, saying that Lejule was calling his pack mates to a place called Reservoir Hill. Now, the boy had set out trying to find his werewolf friend...and promptly gotten lost. He pressed lightly on the gas pedal and slowly continued down the road while he continued to study the map, trying to figure out where he was. He was quickly interrupted by a thump as his Jeep hit something. "What the Hell?" he asked no one in particular as he looked up from the map. He leaned forward, trying to see over the hood. Suddenly, a large werewolf stood up in front of the vehicle. The boy was about to get out and see if the werewolf needed any assistance when he noticed the werewolf's reddish fur and lack of bleeding wounds. His werewolf friend had told him about the three types of werewolves; this one registered as a man-eater. Quickly, the boy shifted to reverse gear and smashed the gas pedal to the floor, literally "flooring it." All four drive wheels spun and squealed, but the Wrangler was going nowhere. The werewolf had grabbed the front bumper with one hand, planted its feet, and begun smashing the engine into scrap with its other arm. Four smashes later, the roaring engine died. Its work done, the werewolf turned its attention to the boy. As the werewolf strutted to the driver's side door, the boy unbuckled his seatbelt and tried to scramble out of the Jeep through the passenger door. The werewolf tore off the driver door, reached in, and yanked and threw the kid out of the Jeep. He landed with a heavy thud at the edge of the road. The werewolf granted him no respite, pouncing on him and biting a chunk out of his shoulder. "God damn it, that hurts!" the boy shouted as he clutched at his wounded shoulder.

His attitude quickly changed as he watched the werewolf gulp down the hunk of flesh. "P-please don't kill me."

The werewolf chuckled. "I would honor that request, but I'm hungry, you ran me over, and your flesh is delectable." The boy tried to crawl away backward, but he quickly found that a tree blocked his path. Before he could scoot around the tree, the werewolf grabbed his leg and dragged him back onto the road. "You're not going anywhere. I'm nowhere near through with you," it said before biting down on and tearing away most of the boy's thigh, gulping it down greedily.

"Chris! No!" a girl shouted from the ruined Jeep.

"I'll take care of your girlfriend after I take care of you." It cocked its paw back as if to slap the human, then curled its claws into a hook. "Time to die."

"Korin, don't you lay one more claw on that human," a firm alto female voice said.

The werewolf looked over his shoulder and called, "I'll be with you when I'm finished, Elenore. If you really want some food, there's a nice female in that vehicle."

"I know."

"Well then, bon appetite." He turned his head back toward Chris and prepared to strike the boy dead. Chris closed his eyes and awaited the blow that would kill him. However, he heard a barely audible feminine grunt, a wolf's roar, and an odd metallic clunk accompanying an immense bludgeoning blow to his chest. He opened his eyes as the wind was knocked out of him. As he tried to regain his breath, his gaze unintentionally followed that of the two predators looming over him. Werewolf, werejaguar, and human were all staring at Chris's chest, where the werewolf's claws had buried themselves in the boy's so-called "Satanic" cross. The werewolf was the first to recover, and he threw Xena off his back and across the road. As he turned to finish off Chris, the boy began to fade in and out of consciousness due to blood loss. As he fell fully unconscious, he thought he saw a band of scaly muscle wrap around the werewolf's torso.

Chris's girlfriend, however, had an excellent view of what was happening. She had seen the serpent-like creature slither up behind the werewolf and begin to wind its body around Korin. That was when she noticed that the serpent had arms. When it finished coiling around the werewolf, it made sure that the werewolf could not move and waited. Xena them walked up to the serpent and said, "He's yours."

"With pleasure," the serpent replied. He grabbed the werewolf's muzzle and pulled it skyward.

As the serpent opened its jaws, the werewolf objected, "No. Oh, Hell no!"

Neither was able to say anything more as the snake's maw engulfed the wolf's muzzle. The snake's jaws spread and slid further forward before latching into flesh and withdrawing, pulling the unfortunate werewolf further into the snake's mouth. The second such movement brought the snake to the wolf's shoulders, which stalled the serpent for a few seconds. It stretched its jaws over one shoulder, then the other and swallowed the widest portion of the werewolf. It tried to free its arms as two coils slid up, revealing all but the lower half of the werewolf's lower arms, wrists, and hands. The serpent, feeling this new struggle, hastened its meal. Several quick thrusts and pullbacks of its jaws stretched the skin of its mouth over the werewolf's elbows, pinning the other's arms in place. With its arms thus pinned, the werewolf had no chance of escape. The serpent knew it and uncoiled its body from the werewolf's body and lifted the latter skyward to allow gravity to aid in sending the snake's meal to its final destination. The werewolf either didn't know or care that it had no chance of escaping, but it began kicking for all it was worth. However, the kicks only served to hasten its demise, as per Newton's Third Law of Motion, driving him further down the snake's gullet. The serpent stopped swallowing and waited to see when the werewolf would realize the futility of its struggles. The wolf never realized it and continued to kick until its upper knees disappeared into the snake's maw, and it legs were fully immobilized. The snake grabbed the werewolf's feet and pulled, pushing the werewolf so far down the snake's throat that only the oversized wolf paws remained out in the open air. The snake, deciding to rub in the werewolf's fate just a little bit more, reached up, tickled the pads of the werewolf's paws, and was rewarded with muffled screams and frenzied struggling. The snake swallowed one last time and closed its mouth around the werewolf's feet, sealing Korin's doom. Despite escape being far from impossible, the werewolf continued to struggle. The snake looked at the descending bulge and said, "Dude, you're in my stomach. You might as well give up."

While the snake was having its meal, the jaguaress was examining Chris's body. A couple of sniffs and a check of the carotid artery confirmed what she suspected. "He's alive," she announced to no one in particular. "But I don't know how much longer he'll stay that way," she added under her breath. She suddenly became aware of another person standing beside her. She looked over her shoulder and saw a girl with glasses and blond hair who was standing at Chris. "What do you want?"

"Did you say that he'll be alright?"

"No. I said that he was alive." Xena looked back at Chris. "But he'll die before sunrise unless he receives urgent medical attention."

"How urgent?"

"As in right now."

"Well, let's get him to a hospital."

"Not enough time."

"Well, what do we have time for?" the girl asked as she began to sob.

Xena thought for a few seconds and could only think of one solution. "Can you cope with having a bestial boyfriend?"

"I don't care. If it'll save him, do it."

Xena lifted the boy's shoulders off the ground, muttered, "Give me strength," and lunged forward, biting into Chris's previously uninjured shoulder.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Xena didn't answer. She was concentrating on suppressing the urge to tear off the boy's entire shoulder. Having eaten human flesh only two weeks earlier, the urge was intense. The succulent flavors of sweat, flesh, and blood combined to form a potent super-flavor that was tantalizing to the point of being almost maddening. However, she was able to fight off the urge for the three necessary seconds and the lifted her jaws off cleanly. As she saw the wound begin to heal, she turned to the girl and said, "He'll be fine this afternoon. For now, we have to move."

"I'm not moving until you explain to me what you did to him."

"Sshe turned him," hissed the snake in reply.

"What do you mean 'turned him?'"

The serpent simply pointed at Xena. The girl's gaze followed the snake's finger as Xena said, "Thanks for putting me on the spot, Hister." As the girl watched, Xena shifted to her human form, shivered for a second, and then shifted back to her jaguar form.

"You're a…shapeshifter?"

"We prefer the term 'were-creatures,' ourssselves," answered Hister. "Now, let'ss go." He lay down on his entire belly. "You can ride on either my back or Xena's sshoulder."

"Why can't I walk?"

"You'd be left behind and become easy prey for another werewolf. By the way, I believe that I would provide a sssmoother ride."

"And that's why you're carrying the boy," Xena chimed in.

"Fine," both Hister and the girl replied in unison. She walked beside him as he slithered over to and picked up Chris's unconscious body. As Hister lay back down on his belly, he said, "By the way, I never got your name."

"Crystal," she replied as she lifted her leg to mount Hister as one would mount a horse. She stopped and looked at the ground. She stooped over and picked something up off the ground. After putting the object in her pocket, she mounted Hister, and he slithered off. Out of the corner of her eye, Crystal saw Xena pushing the Jeep off the road. She suddenly felt movement underneath her posterior. She looked down and saw that she was sitting on the bulge that was the werewolf. She decided to rub in the werewolf's fate, literally, and massaged the bulge, eliciting some weak and futile struggling from within.

Hister hissed lightly in pleasure. "Thanksss. That felt ssso good."

"Yeah, but from stories I've read, I bet that his struggles felt better than my massage."

"By a longsshot, I'm sssorry to sssay."

Both fell silent as they could think of nothing else that was graceful to talk about. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the bent and punctured piece of metal that was still recognizable as Chris's Satanic cross pendant. She felt, through it, how close her boyfriend had come to being killed. After a moment, she tied the pendant behind her neck.

About an hour later, as dawn was breaking, they crested the Huachucas and crossed into Mexico, and Crystal saw why Lejule (Chris's werewolf friend had told Chris who, in turn, had told Crystal.) had chosen such a remote region to set up camp. Well, "camp" was a bit of an understatement. There were thousands of dwellings stretching for miles. She barely had time to mouth the word, "Wow!" before the group encountered one of Lejule's picket posts.

"The man who believes he has everything…" a werewolf challenged.

"Shall end his life with nothing," Xena answered.

"Welcome friends. And humans."

Xena walked up to the offending werewolf and punched him in the face. "Don't say things like that. You'll frighten the poor girl out of her wits."

Rubbing his bruised jaw, the werewolf replied, "Got it…" He paused as he saw the boy, still unconscious, hanging from Hister's arms. "Chris? What in God's name are you doing out here?"

"How do you know this kid, Brent?"

"We're friends from school."

Crystal laughed. "From what he told me, you two were much more than friends. I think 'confidant' was one of the terms he used to describe you."

Xena turned to Brent and asked, "Is this true? Did you tell this boy about yourself? About werewolves in general?"

"Yes." Xena tried to punch him again, twice, but he was expecting it and caught her fists with ease. "It gets better. I've shown him my wolf form."

This time, because her hands were immobilized, Xena thrust her knee up and forward into that most sensitive of male parts. He fell to his knees in pain, and Xena punched him again, breaking his jaw. "You'll be lucky if Lejule lets you live."

"Then he shall make a pretty penny in Las Vegas," a male baritone voice uttered from above.

They all looked up and saw a white werewolf lying across a branch. "How'd you sssneak up like that, Lejule?"

"Honestly? I would be surprised if you could maintain a perimeter while carrying on like that. Hister. Please see to it that our new arrivals are given comfortable accommodations. Brent, you toddle off and allow your jaw to heal. Xena, you relieve him on watch."

"But…"

"No 'buts.' You caused his injury. It is only fair."

Xena growled and grumbled, but she agreed and walked over to start her unplanned shift of guard duty.

Hister twisted his neck around to look at Crystal and said, "You can sssleep if you want."

"Thanks," she muttered. She hugged tighter to his back and fell asleep.

He slithered off to find a place suitable enough for the kids to spend the remainder of the night. When he failed to find a place that he considered suitable, he considered giving them, what his absolute closest friends considered, the most comfortable bed on the planet. However, a slight gurgle reminded him that that spot was taken. Instead, he lay both teenagers on his chest and prepared a makeshift blanket for them. Preparation consisted of rapidly coiling his tail to break up the werewolf's body. Hister then gently wrapped his tail around all three torsos and both pairs of legs. He knew that he could keep them warm, despite being a snake. Because he was a were-creature, he was inherently at least semi-mammalian and, thus, warm blooded. His metabolism was faster than a snake's and his digestive system was likewise accelerated, meaning that the rapidly dissolving werewolf was producing even more heat. With his companions' comfort secured, Hister joined them in sleep.

Chris awoke several hours later; slowly at first, but a slap across his face brought him to full awareness.

"Don't you ever scare me like that again, Chris," Crystal scolded.

"How did I scare you?"

"You almost got yourself killed last night."

The memories of the previous night rushed back. "Oh. Yeah. How long was I out?"

"About twelve hours."

"Wow." He closed his eyes and tentatively reached up to feel how severe the wound on his shoulder was or if he even still had a shoulder. Instead, two surprises met his fingertips. The first surprise was the complete absence of a wound. The second surprise was the presence of fur. He opened his eyes and examined himself. Not only were the wounds of the previous night non-existent, but he was also covered from head to toe in yellow-with-black-spots fur (with the exception of his chest and belly, which was covered in white fur) and had a cat's leg structure, including heavily muscled hips. He looked at his groin and panicked. As far as he could tell, his ability to make love was gone. However, a quick physical inspection revealed that his private parts were tucked underneath the fur of his groin and the primary part was hidden in a sheath of bare, pale pink skin. He stared at for a moment and then he looked back at Crystal with a sly smile and said, "Want to try something?"

"Well, we have nothing else to do," she replied with an equally sly smile.

Lejule patted the shoulder of the werewolf who had relieved himself for perimeter guard duty before walking off to head on a circuitous route to his sleeping area. He received a slight shock as he approached the third guard position. Quartermaine was standing guard, which was to be expected, but he was rubbing his eyes and singing to himself. "Go to bed, Quartermaine."

"I'm fine, sir."

"You only sing to yourself when you are trying to keep yourself from falling asleep. Has no one come to relieve you?"

"Three lesser werewolves who couldn't even take their wolf forms."

"How many shifts have you taken?"  
"Four."

"Quartermaine. Even you cannot function properly for thirty-two straight hours without some sleep." At Quartermaine's pout, Lejule continued, "Tell you what. Take a power nap and then teach the new human girl, Crystal, how to use the Pancor."

"You're asking me to surrender my weapon to a non-combatant?"

"I'm not asking. For once, outside of combat, I'm giving you an order."

"Who will relieve me of my current duty?"

"I will."

"Lejule. You just finished a shift yourself. That's the only time you inspect the perimeter."

"Well, like you, I am not above serving multiple consecutive shifts."

"Point taken. I take my leave," Quartermaine conceded as he began to walk toward his shack. Before he got there, he caught two unfamiliar scents. One was the scent of a teenage girl (That's gotta be Crystal.). The other was a male version of Xena's scent. However, both scents had the same undertone. "Oh, no." His studies of feline anatomy let him know that the girl was in for some serious pain, if she wasn't in pain already. He quickened his pace as much as he believed he safely could and followed the scents. When he arrived, the combined scents of blood and semen told him more than he needed to know. A few more yards brought him to the lovers' location. The jaguar was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide his erection. The girl was sliding her pants up her legs while keeping them pinched together. "Teenagers," Quartermaine sighed as he shook his head. When the girl finished, he continued, "Are you Crystal?"

"Yes."

"Come with me. Lejule asked me to train you in the use of a weapon."  
"But…"

"No bu…" He trailed off as he stared at her shoulder. He then walked up to Crystal, brushing aside her hair to reveal a light bite wound. "How long was this held?" he asked with a note of worry in his voice.

"A few seconds. Nothing major."

Quartermaine cursed in Norse and said, "It only takes three seconds to turn someone."

"Oh."

"You just ruined your girlfriend's life, you dumbkopf!" He turned to Crystal. "Come on." When she hesitated, he growled, "Now!"

One hour later

Chris pulled open the tent flap and found the person he was looking for. "Hey, Xena."

She looked up from the blade she was sharpening and replied, "Good afternoon, Christopher."

"Just 'Chris,' please."

"Fine 'Chris.' What do you want?"

"I wanted to thank you for saving my life." He trailed off as he noticed the curvature of her body. "Would you want to, you know…" He was interrupted by a handpaw on his shoulder. "I'll be right with you," he said as he brushed away the handpaw. "Now, where was I?" He then felt a heavy blow to the back of his head. Stars exploded across his vision for a moment before being chased away by a black shroud.

"Don't flirt with my girlfriend ever again."

At that moment, Crystal looked in and shook her head in disappointment.


	8. Training Day 2, Part 1

**One Last Battle, Ch. 8: Training Day 2, Part 1**

"Shape up!" Lazar shouted as he smashed a youth to the ground. As he cast a baleful glare at the other gathered werewolves, he continued, "Right now, the only wolves of Lejule's that you have a chance of defeating are the yearlings!" He kicked the younger werewolf in the head to emphasize his point.

As the pup crawled away to lie in a whimpering heap, Pilate stepped forward. "With your permission, sir, I would like to show these pups how it's done."

"Just try," Lazar shot back.

The two began to circle each other, scanning for openings, as the younger werewolves formed a large circle around them. Pilate acted first, pouncing at Lazar. The latter fired a left haymaker to intercept the pounce. Pilate saw the blow coming and rolled out of the way. What he didn't know was that Lazar anticipated the maneuver, redirecting the haymaker into a backhand blow that landed squarely against Pilate's chest. The blow swatted Pilate to the ground. He hit the ground and, almost literally, bounced back to his feet. Now it was Lazar's turn to attack. He charged and raked his claws across Pilate's chest. His follow-up punch, however, hit nothing but air as Pilate twisted out of the way. The latter threw a quick punch at Lazar's chest and followed up with a slash of his own claws along Lazar's face. Lazar answered with a pair of kicks: one to the solar plexus, doubling Pilate over, and, using the same foot, the second kick landed on Pilate's collarbone, cracking it and throwing him twelve feet. Pilate hit the ground and tumbled before regaining his footing. As he did, he kicked against the ground, launching himself at Lazar. Not expecting Pilate to recover quite so quickly, Lazar was unable to react quickly enough to block the flying clothesline or get out of the way. The maneuver caught him in the forehead, knocking him to the ground. As Pilate whirled around to deliver another blow, Lazar recovered and braced himself for his own maneuver. When Pilate made to strike his blow, Lazar ducked to the side, causing Pilate's punch to miss. The momentum threw Pilate forward enough for Lazar to get behind him and clamp his jaws around the back of Pilate's skull.

Pilate sighed. "You won this time, old man."

Lazar released and replied, "But not by much. You're getting better." He gave Pilate a playful nip on the ear before turning to the assembled pups and announcing, "Form sparring groups. One hour of sparring, three hours of weapons training, and then go party."

A lesser werewolf, an Omega, walked up and said, "Lazar, we have a problem."

Lazar's muttered, "I hate problems," went unheard as the Omega continued:

"I was inventorying our weapons and found that two of them were stolen."

"Which weapons?"

"One of our two falcatas and a Saiga-12 shotgun. Also, three magazines for the Saiga were stolen."

As Lazar started to respond, a Beta female named Ilsa ran up and exclaimed, "One of the youths is gone!"

"Well, that explains the theft. The youth stole the weapons and ran off…" the Omega began, but Ilsa cut him off.

"You don't understand. When I said 'gone,' I meant 'disappeared.'"

"That's not good. Explain."

"I tracked his scent, and that of a human female he was traveling with, to a spot a mile and a half from camp. There, his scent just vanishes."

"Show me where you lost the scent, and I'll see if I can pick it up."

A half hour later, Lazar knelt and studied the ground while Pilate sniffed the air. "I don't think there was a human here, sir."

"That's because there wasn't," Lazar replied as he brushed aside some natural debris. "Come and look." When Pilate did so, Lazar continued, "Look familiar?"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that this was one of Sakhrin's footprints. But he has only three toes, not five."

"Exactly. Note the scent. Part human, part Gila Monster."

"Like the way we smell partially like wolves and men?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, we won't find the youth. There are signs of struggle: broken branches, furrows in the dirt, and small amounts of blood." He walked over to a large area of flattened plants. "This wereGila Monster eats its prey whole."

"How can you tell?"

"Something large and round lay here. For a few hours."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that the new player overcame and swallowed our youth, and then she lay down to sleep off her meal. After that…" He began to sniff the air and follow the Monster's scent. It ended at a dirt road with lots of tire tracks. "Damn." He studied the newest set of tracks. "Four rear wheels. Duelie truck. Axel width indicates a Ford F-350; an old Lariat, not a modern Super Duty." He noticed and picked up a chip of paint. "Gold. Interesting color choice. However, that color is so unique that we'll be able to track it down easily. Find it. Bring this bitch to justice," he ordered as he stomped off. In anger, he ripped an agave stalk out of the ground and snapped it across his knee. He felt his scapula break, but he didn't care. _Three more weeks_. His stomach growled, demanding meat. Human meat. _Time to hunt_. He ran off to find suitable prey.

Two Hours Later

Lazar eyed his new prey and licked his chops. The woman was mowing her lawn, blissfully unaware that a super-predator had locked onto her. Each time she turned away from him, he stalked a few paces closer, moving from cover to cover. At the end of this movement, he was not even ten yards from her, a short hop for him. When she turned her back again, closer than seven yards, he pounced. She never got a chance to do so much as scream. As he collided with her, he bit into the back of her neck, killing her instantly. He began to feast as the lawnmower sputtered and died. He flipped her body onto its side and began to tear into its stomach, some of the best meat in the human body.

As he was about to bite into her thigh, he heard a deep "boom" and was thrown to the ground by a wave of 00 buckshot burrowing into his side. As he picked himself up off the ground, Lazar heard the telltale two clicks followed by a hollow clatter that signaled a pump-action shotgun cycling shells. Lazar turned to face his new attacker and was knocked back a pace and down to one knee by a second load of buckshot. Rather than grant the human a third chance to figure out how to kill a werewolf, Lazar darted forward and grabbed the scattergun out of the man's hands. "Weatherby PA-08 Upland. 12-guage, pump-action shotgun." He twisted the weapon until the barrel sheared off. "Play-doh," he added as he dropped the two pieces. The man started to reach for another weapon, but Lazar pounced and knocked the man to the ground. The man's scream was cut short as Lazar clamped his jaws around the man's throat.

As the man began to drown in his own blood, Lazar began feasting on the man's flesh. After stripping the two bodies of most of their meat, he decided to see if he could get another snack before he declared today's hunt finished. He didn't find a child as he had hoped, but he did find that the couple did have a teenage boy. As he was studying the boy's picture, Lazar heard a police siren approaching the house. Upon hearing the siren, he walked out of the house, pleased at his work. He had left the bodies intact enough to be ID'd, but barely. He slunk to the tree line and waited for the MP's reaction. Even fifty feet away, Lazar heard the retching. He ran off, cackling quietly, to start sleeping off the double meal.

Eight Hours Later

Lazar decided to wander. Everyone else had gone to sleep, but he had just woken from his. He loved quiet nights like these. He could walk for hours without hearing anything that wasn't a part of nature. He smelled a young mother coyote and stalked forward to observe. He was able to watch as she played with her pups. He sighed and thought, _I hope that I can enjoy playing with my own kids that much_. The mother noticed Lazar and began to move her pups to a safer location. In a gesture of good faith, Lazar began backing off and then walked away. He then caught an ancient scent. Before he could say anything, he heard someone above him say, "Hello, Lazar."

"Hello, little brother," Lazar replied as he climbed up to Lejule's branch.

"Hey! Remember. In our human forms, I'm still bigger. And in either case, I'm older."

"Yeah. Well, I don't count our worthless human forms. And, at our age, five years difference doesn't make an appreciable difference." He looked up and sighed. "Remember when we would sit like this and watch the stars."

"Yeah, and imagine if there could be life out there." Lejule turned to Lazar. "You still think that there can't be anything anywhere else?"

"Of course. How could there be?"

"Humans have said the same about us for eternity. If they're wrong about us, maybe you're wrong about extraterrestrials."

Lazar thought for a moment before replying, "How about we just agree to disagree?"

"Yeah, you do that," Lejule conceded as he scratched at an old scar on his chest.

After a momentary awkward silence, Lazar said, with a slight chuckle, "Remember how we used to gnaw on the bones of our kills as we, so the modern phrase goes, shot the breeze after a successful hunt?"

"Yeah. Speaking of hunting, you have human blood on your breath."

Lazar formed a "C" with his hand, held it to his muzzle, and puffed. After taking a quick sniff, he replied, "So I do. And you have deer blood on yours."

"I did indeed eat a deer a few hours ago." He was silent for a moment, and then asked, "What made you change?"

"How do you mean?" Lazar asked, though he had a good idea of what Lejule meant.

"Why did you turn against humanity?"

Lazar's countenance turned somber as he said, "Remember how I tried to rape Guanin?"

"Yes." The cold malice dripping from that single word would freeze a volcano.

"My own wife and I tried to have a child of our own for years after you had yours. For fifteen years, we had stillborn offspring. When we had our fourth stillborn, it was the last straw for me. After the child was born dead, I punched my wife in a fit of anger." He looked at the ground. "A werewolf would have shrugged off the blow with ease. Instead, the punch twisted her head to the side until her neck snapped. At that moment, one of the braves walked by. He heard the sickening, wet crunch and immediately tried to kill me. In an act of self-preservation, I pounced on him and tore his throat out. From there, it snowballed, and, before I fully realized it, I had killed and partially eaten everyone."

"Everyone, that is, except my family."

"Correct. When I arrived at Guanin's, I placed my jaws around her throat and was about to bite down when I remembered that she had had a half-werewolf offspring. Your son. I demanded that she mate with me. She refused."

"And you punched her to the ground. I saw."

"Well, that was after her second refusal, but yes."

"So, our whole war was born of your jealousy at the fact that I had a son?"

"Yeah," Lazar replied sheepishly.

Lejule thought for a moment before querying, "If you were to have children now, would you consider making peace?"

"Only if my werewolves can hunt as they please."

"And I'll only allow that if each and every one of them swears, on the honor of the Great Spirit that they will never hunt humans again. Ever!"

"Unfortunately, we like the taste of human flesh far too much for that to be an option."

"Indeed, that is unfortunate." After a moment of silence, Lejule continued, "Would you like to come over to my place for a few hours? Like old times?"

"And have all those beef-eaters at my throat? I don't think so."

Laughing, Lejule corrected, "You misunderstand. I meant my apartment in town, not my training camp in Mexico."

"Hmmm. What were you planning to do while I'm there?"

"Oh, I don't know. Talk, play games, watch movies, whatever you like to do in human form."

"What games did you have in mind?"

"Senet, Chess, Risk, Halo, whatever tickles your fancy."

"Do you still have the original Senet board and game pieces?"

"Yep. I have personally restored each piece."

Lazar smiled and said, "I'm sold."

Lejule beamed and returned. "Great! We'll have to stop at camp, first."

"Why?"

"Clothes."

An Hour Later

"I never thought I'd have to take my human form ever again. Not since coming back from Afghanistan in '04," Lazar muttered as they rode through the Fort Huachuca Main Gate in a Transportation Express shuttle.

"Look on the bright side. When this war is over, Werewolves won't have to."

"True."

"We're here." They walked into the hotel and had a gaming marathon. First, they ad a calm game of Egyptian Senet, which ended with Lazar's victory. They followed it with a heated game of secret-mission Risk, Lejule's victory. They finished with a comparatively inferno series of three Elite Slayer matches in Halo: Reach, one of which Lazar won. Still, Lejule was the overall winner of the game marathon.

Lazar bid Lejule good-bye as they both began to walk toward their respective werewolf camps. When they went to bed that night, the two brothers looked at the moon and wept in regret, crying themselves to sleep.


	9. The Lvan Saga

**One Last Battle, Ch. 9: The Lvan Saga**

A barely teenage boy walked home after waiting several fruitless hours for his parents to come and pick him up. When he arrived, he was met by a burly MP. "I have some bad news. Your parents have been killed in an apparent animal attack."

Dumbstruck, the boy could only ask, "May I get something?"

"'Course."

The boy walked into the house and started searching. After a few minutes, he found what he was looking for. He lifted a panel in the oversized headboard of his parents' bed to reveal a gleaming saber with a horse-head pommel. He strapped the saber's scabbard to one of his belt loops and slid the blade home.

As he walked out, the MP commented, "Fine blade."

"I guess." He didn't notice the slight difference in the man's voice.

"You ever use it?"

"No."

"Well," he said with a predatory grin, "That makes my job a bit easier." Any human could detect the tonal drop in the man's voice, but the boy could not think on that as the MP transformed into a rust-furred anthropomorphic wolf and grabbed the boy by the throat. Reacting more by unconscious instinct than conscious thought, he drew the saber and slashed it upwards, severing the werewolf's arm somewhere between the shoulder and elbow.

The werewolf roared in pain and stumbled backward. The boy peeled the werewolf's hand from around his neck and tossed the severed arm away. He began to run for his life. The werewolf started to give chase, but he tumbled because he had a quarter of the support required for quadrupedal running missing. He picked himself up off the ground and resumed pursuit, cursing under his breath the whole way. Despite the head start the boy had, the werewolf caught up with him in less than a minute. He smacked the boy to the ground and leaned down to begin his meal. He then felt a hand grab his shoulder and throw him ten feet or so.

The new arrival popped his knuckles and taunted, "Time to party!" He threw a punch at the werewolf, but his fist was caught. The werewolf, surprised at the power behind the punch, took a moment to examine his new opponent. Before him was another werewolf, a much younger one, with a stripe of paling rust-colored fur running from the tip of his muzzle up and over his forehead. The older werewolf crushed the younger's fist and taunted in return, "Well, well, well. One of Lejule's so-called 'repentants.'" He leaned in closer and chuckled, "I'm going to enjoy killing you."

He opened his jaws to bite into the lesser wolf's head, but he was interrupted as a large weight planted itself on his back. He spun, trying to dislodge the unwelcome passenger, as he shoved the repentant to the ground.

The boy responded by stabbing the werewolf repeatedly with a sharp stick. This had no effect until he impaled one of the wolf's eyes.

In response, the werewolf spun faster for one revolution before violently changing direction. The momentum threw the boy around to the front of the werewolf, who bit down on the first piece of meat that passed in front of his jaws: the boy's shoulder. The boy screamed in pain as the werewolf ratcheted up the pressure of its bite further and further, trying to bite entirely through the shoulder.

The younger werewolf got back into the fray at this point, running up and punching the older werewolf in the back of the head. This forced the man-eater to drop the boy, who blacked out from blood loss as he hit the ground.

The old wolf turned to face the younger just in time to receive a muzzle-collapsing punch that sent him reeling. The younger werewolf grabbed the elder's head, tucked it into the crook of his arm, and shoved the wolf's body upwards, breaking the man-eater's neck. He dropped the body, walked over, and checked up on the boy's status.

The youth was alive, but barely. "Pretty strong heart you have there, kid." He looked up as he heard a howl in the distance. "Just one. If he's on the wrong side, I can…" He was interrupted by a chorus of howls. "Oh bluidy hell." He made a quick visual assessment of his situation before he realized that he could neither stay and fight nor leave the boy to be torn apart by the wolves. He hefted the boy onto his shoulder and began to run, picking up the kid's saber as he went. He continued running until he arrived at a specific officer's home. He laid the boy on the doorstep and placed the saber at the kid's side. He thumped his hand against the door, but he didn't stay to see who answered the door. Instead, he focused on making sure that the man-eaters didn't find the kid. He realized that he would have to take a nearly suicidal course of action to do so, but he welcomed the challenge. He ran back the way he had come until he caught sight of three man-eaters. He recognized one of them: his long-time rival, Pilate.

The old man-eater's muzzle tilted skyward suddenly, and he sniffed the air. The repentant did likewise and realized that he had forgotten to mark the direction of the wind. Though it was only blowing at a mile or so an hour, it was enough to carry his scent right to the man-eaters. The repentant crouched down, picked up a rock, and chucked it at his man-eating counterpart.

Rather than be hit or simply dodge the improvised missile, Pilate held up his hand and effortlessly caught the stone. He examined it and announced, "You'll have to do better than that, Quartermaine."

Quartermaine, knowing that his hiding place was now useless, bolted, tearing through the brush like a maniac.

Pilate followed Quartermaine's movements with his eyes for a few seconds before ordering his sons to begin pursuing the repentant man-eater. Wanting to make their father proud, they took off like impatient rockets.

However, Quartermaine had planned for pursuit and changed his movements to disturb the local flora as little as possible. Taking out a rather thin rope and, tying it to the trunk of a desert willow, he proceeded to prepare a welcoming gift for the two young wolves before bolting again.

The elder son, the faster of the two, ran ahead and hit the rope, which snapped easily. A thick branch, held taut by the rope, swung around and impaled the man-eater with three smaller branches. _That's going to take a while to heal._ When his brother caught up with him, he growled out, "I'll be fine. Get that son-of-a-bitch." A moment after the younger sibling left, Quartermaine ran by, bludgeoning the elder's head off with a giant stone sledgehammer.

When the younger wolf returned and saw the torn stump that was his brother's head, he let loose a despairing wail that morphed into a furious roar. So blinded by his rage was he that he almost failed to notice Quartermaine sneaking up on him. He turned just in time to catch the blood- and rune-covered hammerhead. They stared each other down for a moment.

"Pilate's scent is too strong on you for you to be even so little as a close friend. And, last I knew, he never took male lovers. That leaves one option: blood relative."

"He is my father."

"Ah. A shame, then, that he chose to mate with a relative newborn."

"Are you casting aspersions at my mother?"

"No. Simply remorsing about how much power he has deprived you of."

The young wolf's eyes betrayed his thoughts. _My father made me weaker that I could have been?_ "So what?"

Quartermaine leaned in closer and whispered, "Would you like more physical power?"

The youth's eyes lit up with ambition. "What would I have to do?" he inquired as he, too, leaned in close.

"Join our cause," Quartermaine supplied as he lowered the hammer and tightened his grip on its haft.

"No. I will not betray my father. Nor will I fail him."

"I figured you'd say that," Quartermaine replied as he rammed the hammerhead into the youth's gut.

He stumbled back, trying to pull his diaphragm back into place.

Quartermaine swung the five-foot hammer in a wide, long arc until it connected with the underside of the man-eater's chin. Several wet cracks emanated from his neck as Pilate's last son spit up blood and pitched backward, dead. His job done, Quartermaine ran off.

A few minutes later, a wailing howl of anguish echoed through the night air.

The next morning, the boy awoke with a start. After riding the tidal wave of memories from the previous night, he checked his shoulder only to find that it had healed completely; even the scar was beginning to disappear. Any thought on how that could have occurred turned up a blank. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up, and immediately regretted both actions. The first caused his vision to swim, and the second invited a ring of black to encroach on his vision.

As he tried to shake the ring away, a man said, "Ah! He lives!" The boy looked at the speaker. "Lieutenant Nathaniel Price. 306th M.I."

"Josh."

"Pleasure to meet you." When Josh tried to stand, Price continued, "No, no, no. You were at Death's door last night. Stay here, at least for a while."

"Something killed my parents yesterday. And someone knows exactly what. I'm going to get my brother and sister, find whoever it is that knows, and get revenge," Josh retorted as he began to get dressed.

Price opened his mouth to protest, but he simply said, "All I can do is wish you, 'Good luck.'"

"Thanks," Josh replied as he finished getting dressed and began walking out the door.

Price followed and they bid each other goodbye at the door. He walked back to the room where the kid had stayed the night. What he saw made him cover his face with a palm and say, "He forgot his weapon." He went to his house phone and dialed. "He just left…Yes…Unfortunately…Yes…Understood." He hung up and followed, grabbing his dog tags as he walked out the door.

"Okay Josh. What is it you've gotten yourself in over your head with, this time?"

Josh peeled back the collar of his shirt to reveal what was left of the two-day old bite wound.

"Geez. How long ago was that bite?" Josh's younger brother, Kris, asked.

"Believe it or not, I got bit the night before last."

"But no bite wound heals that fast," impugned Josh's older sister, Kayla. "Except…oh shit."

"I think that you were bitten by a werewolf," she replied, blanching as she said the words.

"Mean-Oh fuck. When is the next full moon?"

"Um. The solstice."

"That's in less than two weeks!"

"Then we'd better find the werewolf that bit you and kill it, fast."

"Well then. How does one kill a werewolf?"

"Most of the legends about them suggest using a weapon made of silver."

"'Most?'"

"About 80% of them. 5% say that they are just mortal creatures. The remaining 15% don't provide any method for killing them."

"Well then, let's go look for some silver," Josh said as he walked into the family house. Their search yielded a silver steak knife (which they tied to a broom handle to form a makeshift silver spear), a Colt M1911 pistol, and a 30.06 hunting rifle with 48 rounds of ammunition for each firearm.

Thus armed, they set out, following a trail of broken brush. As they hiked, they ran across a pair of werewolf corpses (Pilate's two sons), and nearly sent their breakfasts to the ground. They managed to prevent that from happening long enough to put the corpses out of sight and out of mind.

After four more hours of fruitless searching, they stopped to rest. Unbeknownst to them, several hungry eyes watched and waited. "Josh. We should get some sleep. Prepare for tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess."

Within minutes, his siblings were asleep. Josh, however, lay there awake. He couldn't shake the feeling that, if he fell asleep, his lassitude would cost the remainder of his family their lives.

A lone wolf stalked forward, assured that it would soon enjoy a large feast. Its fur glistened reddish-bronze in the evening light. So preoccupied with the smell of its potential meal was the wolf that it failed to notice a twig under its paw until said twig snapped.

Josh sat bolt upright and grabbed for the spear as the wolf pounced. He managed to bring the spear into line fast enough and drove it into the wolf's gaping maw, eliciting a spurt of blood as the knife punched out through the back of the lupine's head. As its body collapsed to the ground and the wave of adrenaline subsided, Josh studied the corpse. "Huh. Silver _does_ kill a werewolf."

"Yeah, it certainly does," agreed his brother as the latter walked up, Colt in hand.

Growls from the surrounding brush set their nerves on edge; each of the children realized in that instant what it must feel like for zebra and buffalo on the savanna just before a lion hunt starts. Josh picked up the rifle, as he sensed that he did not have enough time to pull the spear out of the corpse. He was proven correct as not one, not two, but five more werewolves burst out of the brush.

"Time to test theory number two!" Josh shouted as he drilled a round from the rifle into the pack. Before he could cycle the bolt, one of the beasts pounced and tackled him to the ground. As a consolation prize, a short, sharp yelp and a series of thudding sounds told him that he had scored a critical blow at the very least.

His brother was able to drill four rounds into an oncoming werewolf (The other four either missed completely or hit one of the other werewolves.), planting rounds three and four in its head. As it tumbled, Kris began to reload and remarked, "Hey. They die zombie-style." He rammed a new clip home, but, before he could chamber a round from the magazine, another werewolf pounced on him. The Colt skidded to a stop at Kayla's feet.

Before she could grab the weapon, the last werewolf circled around and came to a stop between her and the pistol. "Oh, I wouldn't touch that gun if I was you, little missy."

Staggering backward and tripping over a tree root, she stammered, "Y-you can talk?"

"'Course. Now let's eat, boys!"

"No," hissed a deep baritone that caused the werewolves to flinch. A second later, an anthropomorphic Komodo dragon stepped out into the small clearing with its hands clasped at the small of its back and the aura of a leader; the evil kind. "Lazar wants any human we encounter to be captured for training purposes."

"Well, I'll have to confirm that with a higher ranking werewolf. Don't take this personally, but I don't trust lizards."

"You think that I would **falsely** claim that an order was from Lazar?"

Before the Texan could respond, a Mexican-accented bass affirmed, "I can vouch for Sakhrin."

As the voice's owner stepped into view, the insubordinate werewolf sputtered, "Javier. I didn't realize. My apologies, noble dragon."

Sakhrin, the Komodo dragon, laughed, "No need for patronization. I forgive you, young wolf." He walked over to Josh and delivered a knockout punch to the boy.

Josh woke up hours later, tied to a tree. As his world came back into focus, his eyes went wide as he tried and failed to count the werewolves in the area. He was thankful that they appeared to be keeping their distance.

"Ah. The young would-be werewolf hunters have awoken, I see." Josh looked up just in time for his eyes to follow the path of another werewolf as it dropped out of the tree above him and landed in front of him. The immense light rust-colored wolf grabbed Josh's chin, examining the boy. "You shall provide a good hunt. I can see loss and rage in your eyes; a desire for revenge. The loss of your parents, so tragic."

"You know who killed my parents, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

But the red wolf had already walked away. Another werewolf, this one with an even lighter fur color, walked up to the first wolf and asked, "What is your assessment, Pilate?"

"The boys have a warrior's fire in their eyes; the elder of the two has something else that I can't place, but they will provide good sport, Lazar."

"And the girl?"

"A scholar. She's not even worth the effort of…"

He was cut off by a scream of rage from Josh. "You will not hurt my sister!"

The two werewolves turned and stared at the boy's outburst. The werewolf who had been called Lazar said, "What a powerful display of emotion." He walked over and grabbed something that was behind another tree. "What do you think of this?" He hauled the object around the tree, pulling Kayla around into Josh's field of view.

"Kayla!"

"So. That's the fair maiden's name," Lazar said as he ran his claws through her hair, eliciting a shudder and a whimper from the girl. "Unfortunately, Kayla, there is no one to rescue a fair maiden out here." He pushed her shoulder forward, forcing her to bend over, and bracketed the back of her neck with his jaws. Casting an arrogant glare at Josh, Lazar bit down. Kayla barely had enough time to display a fraction of her pain on her face. With a quick twist of his neck, Lazar tore off the girl's head. After he dropped the head onto his hand and licked the blood off his muzzle, he growled, "Mmm. 'Sweet' sixteen, indeed."

"YOU'LL PAY FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" Josh yelled with a fury that turned the head of every werewolf (and other lycanthrope) in the camp.

"Will I?" Lazar leaned in closer. "I've been carrying on like this for nearly ten millennia, and no one has stopped me, yet." He leaned in still closer, such that his canine nose nearly touched Josh's own nose, and continued, "I am the most powerful werewolf you will ever meet. Nothing on this Earth is a match." He used his claws slit the rope that bound Josh to the tree as Pilate did the same with Kris. "Over these mountains, in Mexico, is the territory of another wolf pack. If you can make it there, I will ensure that my pack will not hunt you unless you intrude on our territory again." He stepped to the side and waved his hand toward the South. "Off you go."

Josh thought about taking a swing at the apparent Alpha wolf, but he decided against it as he saw about twenty other werewolves approaching. He walked backward and grabbed his brother's arm before they both began to run in the direction Lazar had indicated. As they went, they set up hasty traps to slow down the werewolf pack as much as possible. A couple of the traps were lethal, but most weren't.

The pursuing werewolves set off every trap, losing three wolves to death and another eleven to disabling injuries. The last wolf, the lone female, took to the trees and leapt from tree to tree, avoiding all of the traps. A few minutes later, she leapt out of the canopy, if it could be called that, and caught both of the boys by the back of the neck and shoved them to the ground. She flipped them over and picked them up by their throats. She sniffed each boy and queried to the air, "Which one should I eat first?"

"Neither."

She whipped around at the sound of another, unfamiliar voice behind her, letting her arms, and the boys she carried, hang at her sides. "What the hell do you want, Beef-Eater?"

"Those two are now under my protection. Drop them."

"Nice try. But, they're my prey. Scram." She lifted Josh to her eye level and opened her jaws to tear his throat out.

Not wanting to become a werewolf's dinner just yet, he swung his knee up and smashed it into the bottom of the female's jaw, earning a crack as a couple of teeth and one side of her jaw cracked.

She staggered back in pain and dropped both of the boys as she clutched her mandible in pain. After a couple of seconds, she looked at the ground, spit out the broken teeth, and glared daggers at Josh. "Prepare to die."

She strode forward as Josh scrambled back. The new werewolf arrival strode forward just as quickly and punched the female in the gut, sending her stumbling back. After a moment, they both settled in for a long fight. The Beef-Eater struck first. Not with his fist, but with words. "This fight will be only between you and me." She got down on all fours, roared, and leapt. The Beef-Eater grabbed her collar at the sternal notch and shoved his hand into her gut below her rib cage and threw her over his shoulder. As she landed, still on all fours, he continued, "I don't want to kill you. If you change sides in this conflict, I won't have to."

She simply bellowed, "You're between me and my prey!" before she pounced again. As they collided, they began swiping each other with their claws; swiping faster and faster until the entire area within five feet of them became a cloud of blood.

Out of this maelstrom flew a sword, which stuck in the ground right in front of Josh. He grabbed it, ran into the red tempest, and slashed blindly, hoping that he had not struck wrong. He hadn't. A shrieking roar of pain was elicited from the female, and she spun and layed Josh's abdomen open with one swipe of her clawed hand.

That gave the Beef-Eater the opportunity he needed. He got up, put one hand on the backside of her head, grabbed the tip of her muzzle with the other, and wrenched her head to the side until a sickening wet crack emanated from her neck. He collapsed from his wounds as the limp body fell to the ground. Josh looked at his own wound, which was already healing, and then at the sword: a cavalry saber with a golden hilt and the emblem of a horse's head on the pommel. That was when the connection was made in his mind. As the Beef-Eater grabbed up his dog tags, which had been sheared away in the struggle, Josh blurted out, "It's you!"

"What is?"

"Thanks for returning my sword, Lieutenant Price."

The werewolf Price looked at Josh with a near stricken, but simultaneously impressed, gaze. He then turned his gaze back the way Josh and Kris had come as a howl peeled through the night air. "We have to go. Get on my back." Once the two boys did so, he added, "Hold on tight." He then bolted on all fours, keeping his speed just low enough to not accidentally dislodge the human and the newly created werewolf.

Within minutes, he crested the mountains and another hour brought the trio to another area that teemed with werewolves. A white wolf and another with a rust-red stripe greeted them. As Price collapsed from the combined stressors of his wounds and exhaustion from the non-stop run, the white wolf said with concern, "What have you brought us, Nathaniel?"

"A human and a new wolf, rescued from one of Lazar's training hunts."

"Any other complications?"

"One strong female Man-Eater managed to trail them to the spot where I picked them up. I had to take her down. Sorry for disobeying your orders, Sir."

The white wolf slit open his hand and laid it on Nathaniel's wounded shoulder. As it healed, he said, "There is no need to be formal, Nathaniel. I also do not blame you for the female's death. It was a necessary violation." As he tended to the younger's other wounds, he continued, "And what is your name?"

When no one replied, the white wolf turned his head toward Josh and repeated his question. "Oh, J-josh," he managed to stammer out as a reply.

"Well, you won't be able to keep that name," the rust-striped wolf responded. "Is there another name you would like?"

Josh thought for a moment, and then it came to him like a lighting bolt. "Lvan."

The white wolf, having finished tending to Nathaniel's wounds, stood, turned fully toward Josh and said, "That is the most unique name I've ever heard." He walked over and shook Josh's hand. "Welcome to the pack, Lvan. I am Lejule."

"Lejule. This is my brother, Kris," Lvan replied as he indicated his brother.

"I welcome you both. Come, let me introduce the you two to the rest of the pack."


	10. Training Day 2, Part 2

**One Last Battle, Ch. 10: Training Day 2, Part 2**

Lazar surveyed his pack as he knelt on a rocky promontory, scowling. The latest series of hunts had ended in disaster. Over the course of the last week, almost thirteen werewolves had died, due mainly to Lejule's wolves' overprotective nature in regards to humans. One of Lazar's werewolves had the embarrassing ignominy of being killed by a human. _Damn obsessed survivalists_. He punched the rock, sending a small chunk tumbling to the valley floor. _Gotta remember to stop doing that_, he admonished himself, _otherwise, I soon won't have a rock to stand on_.

He then heard a paw-step on the ground leading to the rock. He turned to see one of the massive Russian werewolves, specifically the Russian Alpha, walking toward him. "Hello, Viktor."

The big Eurasian simply nodded before explaining his reason for being there, in Russian.

"What? But…it's a week early!"

"Вы хотите мне сказать ей, чтобы бороться против воли природы в течение недели?" the Russian replied sarcastically.

"Alright, I'm coming. You don't have to be a smartass." Lazar leapt off the ledge and dug his claws into the rock to slow his descent. He pushed off and dropped the last ten feet, settling onto all fours to run as he hit the ground. When he did, he took off at a higher speed than he had ever run before; even when hunting, he had never run as fast as he ran now. He chuckled to himself. _I bet I could give Lejule a good challenge at this pace_.

When he arrived at his den, dug into a hillside, he waited at the entrance. Contrary to popular belief, some aspects of werewolf culture are strictly matriarchal, especially in Lazar's pack. Welcoming new werewolves into the world was one such aspect. His wife saw him and nodded, giving him consent to come by her side. "I'm…glad…you… came," she grunted out between contractions.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world," he replied as he took hold of her hand in both of his.

Alyssa smiled before the largest contraction hit, and she screamed in pain. "Honey, I am going to need you to push, hard," ordered Pilate's wife and mother of three, Monika.

"What the fuck do you think I've been doing, sis? Practicing?" Lazar tool a half-step back. His wife was the slowest person to anger that Lazar knew, slower even than Lejule, but when she did get angry, it served everyone well to get out of her way. He kept holding her hand and was rewarded by having his hand crushed in her diamond grip. She immediately apologized, but he waved away her concern, saying that it was no matter.

She screamed again and a small amount of amniotic fluid spilled out. "That's good. Keep it—" she was interrupted by a kick in the face.

"I…want…this…to…end, now!" Alyssa growled.

"I know you do, and it will soon. I can see the head of the first one." And she could. She reached up and cradled the head of the soggy little humanoid puppy, slowly helping draw the kid out of the birth canal. Nearly a minute later, the little girl was fully out and crying. Monika handed her off to Alyssa, who clutched the child to her chest and began grooming her as maternal instinct kicked in. Without skipping a beat, Monika moved her hands back between her sister's legs to catch the second child. After a few seconds, the second little head appeared, this one human. He was also handed off to Alyssa once he came fully out and Monika prepared herself for the Alpha pair's third child. She stared with a somewhat confused look on her face; then her eyes went wide as she said, "Oh shit. It's trying to come out crosswise!" Fortunately, she knew what to do. She stood and slit open her sister's belly with one claw before she reached in and pulled out the little infant. Within seconds, Alyssa's abdomen sealed shut as her advanced healing took effect, and she was handed the third hybrid child, also female.

Lazar looked at his three children and asked, "So, honey, what do you want to name our kids?"

"Well," she began as she looked at the boy, "Ever since that name was invented, I have always wanted a Jeremiah."

"Jeremiah's a good name."

"And I've always wanted to name my daughters after goddesses." She looked from one daughter to the other. "This one looks wiser. I'll name her Athena. And this one is already acting more aggressive. The name Kali fits."

"Jeremiah, Athena, and Kali. Good names, all." He knelt down until his chin nearly touched the three newborn werecoywolves and whispered, "Welcome to the world."

Meanwhile, in Mexico, Lejule was teaching one of his newest werewolves. He threw a flurry of punches, ranging from left-hook haymakers to quick uppercuts and joint strikes. Most of the blows were effortlessly blocked or dodged. Then his opponent retaliated, shoving his arm to the side and using the same arm to smash him in the chest. She launched her own flurry of blows that was mostly blocked by Lejule. They continued like that for hours until both combatants broke away and sat down to rest out of exhaustion and blunt-force injuries.

"Remind me…to never…fight…a spirit," Lejule groaned between panting breaths.

"Yeah. Same…with…you," Tori replied as she held her hand against one of her broken ribs.

_Oh, come on, Astoria. That was nothing._

"Easy for you to say, Loreli. You don't have a physical body that can be injured. I do. Ouch," Tori groaned.

"I was watching, and I must say that was an impressive display of an unstoppable force crashing into an immovable object," Quartermaine said as he came and sat down next to the pair. "I doubt that Odin could fight much harder."

_Ha! Odin is a pipsqueak compared to me._

"Good thing he can't hear you."

"Why is that?"

She was spared from responding on the delicate subject by the honking of a pair of car horns. "Oh, what is this?" Lejule groaned as he stood up, clutching his own broken ribs, and walked toward the source. Everyone either whistled appreciatively or gasped in awe as a modified DeLorean DMC-12 pulled up with two Ford Flexes following.

A moment after the three vehicles stopped, all sixteen occupants stepped out. "Ah, a fine place to train for a scrap, eh chaps?" the DeLorean's driver asked rhetorically.

"What are you doing here, you brainless twit?" Lejule shouted as he walked toward them.

"I would presume for the same reason you're here, you wanker," the new arrivals' leader shot back. They stared each other down for a moment before they laughed, the new guy shifted to his wolf form, and the two werewolves hugged (non-romantically, of course).

Lejule parted the hug, stepped back, and asked, "But seriously, what are you doing here, Richard?"

"Well, about two weeks ago, most of Lazar's professional arses scarpered from the Isles. Only a token force was left to give us a little spot of werewolf bother. Well, needless to say, I was curious. So, I got some of my chaps' bums into gear and got them over here, along with some weapons." He reached into the back seat of the DeLorean and pulled out an L115A3 sniper rifle. "For a country of gun nuts, you would be surprised how bloody hard it is to sneak a gun into your country."

"Yeah, well, we tend to allow almost anyone to buy a gun here, but we, officially, do not allow anyone to bring a gun in from some other country. Paradoxical, I know." He turned to show Richard and his men where they would be spending the remaining time until the full moon.

"Um, Lejule? Who is this?" Tori demanded.

"Right. I forgot that I had not informed the new werewolves. This is Beowulf, Alpha of the British werewolf pack. Beowulf, I have a few dozen introductions for you."

"And I have one for you. We found a different type of skinwalker in Cornwall. Brocktree, come here."

"Br—? He took his name from one of Brian Jacque's _Redwall_ characters? Why—? Oh. Werebadger."

The new skinwalker shifted form, bowed, and said, "Correct. Lord Brocktree, at your service, Lejule." He stood to his full seven-foot height and brought an L85A2 assault rifle to his shoulder.

The ancient werewolf stared at it for a moment before cracking up into laughter. "5.56 NATO rounds do not have enough punch to be useful against what we will be facing."

"Brocktree is my absolute best marksman. He is able to achieve shot patterns that defy logic."

"Show me."

The werebadger looked at the ground and picked up a small pebble, no larger than a No. 2 pencil eraser. He placed it on the roof of the DeLorean and ran off to about three-hundred-meters' distance, nearing the L85's maximum effective range. A few seconds later, a small bullet pinged off of the pebble, and what was left of both objects flew out of sight in the brush a few yards away. Beowulf walked to the car and brushed of the fragments of the bullet and pebble, smiling when it was revealed that the luxury car had suffered no damage from the shot. "Voila."

"Alright. I will admit; I am impressed. But, I still will not endorse using a .223 against us. It has next to no stopping power."

"Actually, my L85 is customized. I had it rebarreled for the 6.5 mm Grendel round. It still has a thirty-round magazine, but it has greatly increased stopping power."

"Ah." He looked beyond at the British Alpha female who was retrieving her own rifle, covered in yellowish lacquered wood, from one of the Flexes. "Good to see you, Boudicca. I see that you still have your Lee-Enfield No. 4."

"Always liked the .303 bolt-action. God knows I've been waiting a long time to fire it again."

Lejule looked at the British contingent of werewolves and noted, "Where are your close-combat weapons?" As one of the wolves started to raise a shotgun, Lejule elaborated, "I meant melee weapons."

"Oh, in all of the modern wars, we've found that a bullet beats a blade every time. Still, we have these," Beowulf replied as they all drew Ka-bar combat knives, with the exception of himself. He drew an immense sword from the back seat of the DeLorean.

"Of course you kept Ayaltense all these years."

"Of course." He rubbed his hand along the flat of the blade. "Seven feet of solid Iberian steel. A true shield-breaker." He pulled the sword's equally massive scabbard, strapped it diagonally across his back, and sheathed the gargantuan blade. Behind Lejule, someone gulped in fear. "And what is that?"

Lejule turned and saw Owen, in his bestial form, trembling a little. Laying a reassuring hand on the latter, he said, "Remember when I told you about my son?" Beowulf nodded and Lejule continued, "This is his, and by extension my, descendant, Owen. He is also the only hybrid skinwalker I know of."

"What species?"

"Wolf, bear, bat, and tiger."

"Bat?"

"Yeah. I do not know where that could have come from."

"How is 'is skill with a blade?"

"Decent. He was only introduced to our world three days before the last full moon." He looked at Brocktree. "Though his marksmanship could use a little touch-up."

The badger grinned. "I would be happy to oblige." The badger and the hybrid walked off for their own training.

A sudden new scent caught Lejule's nose—and some of the others' noses, as well. "You smell that?"

"Yeah. Gila monster, right?"

"Almost."

"**Were**Gila monster?"

"Would be my guess," Lejule muttered as he scanned the surrounding area. There! A flicker of movement in a copse of trees about a hundred meters off. "Now to see if I guessed correctly." He took off and the unknown turned to run. However, a wolf beats a lizard in a foot race any day, and he quickly caught up to the Gila monster. He shoved it to the ground and planted his foot on its back. That was when he noticed that it was female, but he disregarded that fact as he began his interrogation. "What are you doing here?"

She groaned and whined, "You're crushing me, you motherf—!"

He pressed down harder, cutting off her complaint, and enunciated, "What are you doing here?"

"Hunting man-eaters."

"Well, you came to the wrong camp for that." He leaned in closer, putting a little more weight on the Gila monster's back, and whispered, "We are the professional hunters. You could join us if you like. Or I could snap your neck for wanting to kill one of my werewolves. Your choice."

She struggled for a couple of second more before relaxing and saying, "Fine. I yield."

Lejule got off of her back and pulled her to her feet. "What is your name?"

"Tanya."

"What weapons are you proficient with?"

"None."

Lejule cocked an eyebrow. "Then how do you hunt?"

"I was born unique. My prey never gets a real chance to fight back." She then cupped her lower jaw in one of her hands and tugged. Two simultaneous pops emanated from that location, and her jaw dropped out of place.

Lejule's eyes wide for a moment before he allowed himself a one-sided smile. "There is someone who might like to meet you. This way." He turned and began walking back to the main camp, leaving Tanya bewildered for a moment before she began following, tail wagging very slightly and slowly. As they walked through the camp, many of the werewolves gave her a slightly confused glance before accepting the new arrival with a shrug. Finally, they approached one dwelling that had a Viking dragon motif painted on it. "Jormungand. You have a visitor."

A middle-aged werewolf stepped out of the dwelling and appraised Tanya. "What is the purpose of bringing her here?"

"Show him your peculiarity of biology."

She sighed and popped her jaws out of place. Jormungand was stunned. For a second. "Come on in. I think that we will have some long conversations, you and I," He said as he walked back inside.

Tanya stood with her brow set crooked. "What on Earth did he mean by that?"

"He eats the same way you do."

Her brow elevated as much as her reptilian form allowed as she stuttered, "B-but, werewolves aren't built that way!"

Lejule smiled. "He had his jaw split just so he could; he got the idea after watching a snake eat a rat or something."

"Wouldn't it have healed far too rapidly for it to be any use to him?"

"He had the procedure done with a werewolf tooth; the diluted venom we possess countered the healing."

"He was really dedicated to that thought of swallowing prey whole."

"I know. I was the one who guided the tooth." Lejule leaned in closer. "Get this. He claims to be trying to learn how to shut down his stomach acids at will. Something about keeping certain prey alive."

Tanya laughed. "That's easy."

Lejule stood there for a second with just a single eyelid twitching. "I'll just leave you two to it," he said as he walked away.

Tanya shook her head as she walked into Jormungand's dwelling. "Figures. Vore. People either like it or hate it."

"I hear ya'. Now, I heard you say that you could control your system."

Lejule decided to unwind from the conversation with Tanya by taking a walk through town. As he walked through the local mall, he heard a near-mystic voice say, _"There will be great hardship ahead. The balance of the world is at stake. Forces conspire to turn the balance against you and Humankind. But you shall receive help from a source you never knew existed."_ He looked around for the speaker, and he saw a woman who looked distressingly familiar staring at him and rubbing a bear-paw pendant whose chain was far too long for her neck. _"It is time for a reunion with your past."_ The woman turned away and walked off, disappearing into the crowd. Lejule tried to follow, but there was not even so little as a scent trail.


	11. The Battle, Part 1

**One Last Battle, Ch. 11: The Battle, Part 1**

Lazar smiled as he watched his kids play-fight. It had only been a week since they had been born, but the hybridization had caused them to experience accelerated growth. They were already up, walking, had their eyes open, and could change between the human and beast forms.

His smile broadened as they wrestled with each other. Kali and Jeremiah were already showing themselves to be on their way to becoming great warriors. Athena was sitting off to the side, having found a children's book, and was making great progress, becoming very like the wise being her namesake was.

Kali threw her little brother over her back and planted one foot on his chest, signaling her victory.

Lazar gave a little light-hearted applause. "Well done. You have the makings of a warrior woman, Kali."

His daughter, not yet old enough to talk, simply smiled in return.

Athena, who had complemented her wisdom with an extensive vocabulary for her age, commented, "I thought it was crude."

Kali shot her a death glare and growled.

"Peace, you two. Save it for those who prefer eating lesser beasts than men," Alyssa interjected.

Then Lazar heard a footstep behind him. He rolled over and saw Pilate. "What news, my friend?"

"There are only three more hours until sunset, Alpha."

Lazar sighed. He knew the words that weren't spoken. Only three hours until the final preparation for the battle began. He replied, "Thank you for the information. I will be there soon." With a nod, Pilate left. The old red werewolf stood, turned to his wife, and said, "I'm sorry, but I have to leave. Stay here and you'll be fine." He knelt and hugged his three kids. "Daddy's going to go and fight some monsters so that you can live free. I'll be back soon." He quickly turned and left, not letting his kids see the tear in his eye.

Almost four hours later, Lazar stood on a low rise, waiting for the remaining new werewolves to regain consciousness after their transformations were complete. He ran his claws along the wooden body of his weapon. He remembered his introduction to this weapon.

He had been a conquistador in Cortez's army during the Aztec campaign. He, and the only other werewolf in that army, had been on patrol when they had been ambushed by a band of Aztec warriors. Many of the warriors fell before they could strike any blows. The first one that did, a woman, had used a weapon much like this one and, the weapon had managed to cleave right through the other werewolf's breastplate with its first swing. Her second swing had torn his body into two ragged halves.

It had been from that werewolf's death that Lazar learned to respect the maquahuital. It was also how he had met Elenore Downey. By the Great Spirit, he wished she were here right now. He could use her skill with a blade. But she had gone missing just before the last full moon; although, some of his men had reported seeing her in the area in her human form.

He shook his head to clear away the unreasonable thought that she had betrayed him and joined his brother's forces. A few more minutes passed while the last four werewolves regained consciousness. Lazar unleashed a short howl to get everyone's attention, and then he began to speak. "My fellow skinwalkers. We have lived with the fear that one of my brother's wolves would hunt us down for our entire lives. Well, that ends tonight! Tonight, we shall face my brother's puny forces in this glorious final battle! By dawn tomorrow, there will be only one species of werewolves on this Earth! That species will be us! Starting tomorrow, we shall set about supplanting humans as the dominant species on the planet! We will hunt and we will kill and there will be no one to stop us!" He stopped for a moment to let the cheers subside, and then he finished, "Let us not forget our fellows who have died to let us live and reach this glorious moment. Let not their sacrifices be in vain. Avenge every single one of them, tonight." He then descended into the crowd and began to lead them to the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Lejule was staring at the moon and feeling her energy flowing through him as the sun finished setting. He heard screams of pain behind as many of the youngest werewolves experienced their first transformations. He turned and saw one of the only people who were managing to stay awake for their first full moon.

Chris was sitting on a tree stump with the door that used to belong to his Jeep Wrangler sitting at his feet. The interior paneling had been torn off and a sheet of leather cut from one of the seats had been wrapped around the top of the window's frame (which had been reinforced by several strips of steel, making an effective, if somewhat unwieldy, axe. "Does it always hurt that much the first time?" he asked as he grimaced.

"Yes." The screams died out as the first-timers fell unconscious. "I am somewhat surprised by the fact that you were not only able to change unconsciously the first time, but that you were able to speak in your bestial form on your first day as well. Normally, learning to adapt your vocal cords is a process that takes the equivalent of two weeks' time."

"I don't know. Xena said that there might have been some skinwalker blood flowing through me, and that it was 'awakened' when she turned me," he replied with a shrug.

At that moment, Quartermaine walked up, sharpening his claymore. "The humans are predicting a Blood Moon for tonight. Well, technically tomorrow morning, but it will happen before sunrise."

"Wonderful," Lejule replied sarcastically.

"What's a 'blood moon'?" Chris asked.

"A Blood Moon occurs when a full moon falls into the Earth's shadow; you know it as a lunar eclipse. We call it a Blood Moon because, being reflected through the Earth's shadow, the radiation that empowers us becomes far stronger. Thus, a werewolf empowered by a Blood Moon is all but invincible except against another werewolf, as they will both be empowered by the same Blood Moon."

"And other skinwalkers?"

"I have no idea."

"The Blood Moon has no effect on other species of skinwalkers," Xena answered as she all but swaggered up to them, Saiga-12 shotgun in one hand, falcata in the other. "My ex-husband, Quetzalcoatl, studied all the skinwalker species he could for millennia," she explained as she slid the sword into a magnetic sheath on her back and slung her shotgun over her shoulder.

"You never told me that you were married," Jarvin complained playfully as he walked up behind her, recently-made stone axe in hand.

"You never asked. And, besides, we've only known each other for a month," she replied impishly. Then they kissed.

"I do hate to interrupt romantic moments, but I am assigning you to partner with one of the humans, Xena. We need to get you and your partner acclimated to each other."

"Fine." She gave Jarvin another quick peck and began to walk off with Lejule.

A few minutes later, they had picked up eight other werewolves and Brocktree and arrived in front of a group of ten humans who were cleaning AA12 automatic shotguns. "Atten-tion!" Lejule hollered. Immediately, all ten soldiers stood ramrod straight and held their fists below their hips. "At ease." They relaxed, spreading their legs to shoulder width and putting their fists at the small of their backs. Lejule then introduced the nine werewolves and one werejaguar who would be escorting them. He introduced Xena to her charge thus: "Xena, this is Corporal Benjamin Nichols. He has some of the highest shooting scores of the entire 306th MI Battalion. Benjamin, Xena is one of our fastest warriors. When you spend the one clip you have for your weapon, her job will be to extricate you from the battle line and deliver you to the backfield, out of the way of the entire battle."

"Understood, sir."

"I am not in your chain of command, Ben," the ancient werewolf reminded the Corporal as he patted the young soldier's shoulder before walking away. A minute later, Lejule came upon Hister and Jormungand. The former had a pronounced bulge in his serpentine body, and the latter was massaging it. "Hey, vorephiliacs! Stop fooling around and prepare for battle!" As he walked toward the front of the battle line, where Viridian was holding his weapons, he muttered, "Freaks. But, to each his own."

He looked up as his Alpha female handed him his weapons. "Time to bring this war to an end, my dear."

"Please do not call me that," he replied as he strapped the scabbard for his nodachi to his back, fastened the belt that held his katana and kukri around his waist, and grabbed his staff as a monk would a walking stick.

The two Alpha werewolves walked along the battle lines, making sure that each other werewolf was ready for combat. Lejule mentally noted every werewolf's weapon choices. Most of them had a gladius or a ninjato. Viridian, who, like Lejule, had liked Japanese weapons very much, had brought along a naginata, five feet of haft topped with a one-foot blade. Owen had a stone axe consisting of a blade that had been hewn from a boulder and been jammed into the end of a tree branch. Quartermaine had brought Mjolnir, a monstrous hammer five feet long and weighing nearly thirty pounds (half of it in the head) and named for its mythical brother-weapon, and his old Scottish Highlands claymore named Bannockburn for the first battle he had used the sword in. Jormungand had brought his skeggox (bearded axe) and his old (Viking vintage) longsword, Bloodletter. Beowulf had his L115 .338 Lapua Magnum sniper rifle and, of course, the seven-foot long Ayaltense; he, Boudicca, and Brocktree had been assigned to escort duty of the human contingent. Lejule had bought Boudicca and Brocktree large Bowie knives to replace their Ka-Bars and use in addition to their rifles. Hister and Tanya had elected to use no weapons during this battle, preferring the weapons nature gave them. Tori, at Loreli's insistence, had also decided to go au natural, and Lejule had granted her the right to do so. After all, he had seen the spirit-wolf's full power in mock combat. Finally, the new werewolf Lvan was armed with the cavalry saber he had brought with him; his still-human brother was armed with an M1 Garand Lejule had purchased from the local Big 5 Sporting Goods store. Confident that the werewolves of his army were armed as well as they could be, Lejule and Viridian returned to their places in the front line.

He then heard, from twelve rows back (the repentants' section), Quartermaine's voice rising with his favorite song. "In this farewell, there's no blood. There's no alibi."

At this point, Ethan's voice joined it. "'Cause I've drawn regret from the truth of a thousand lies."

By the second stanza, the rest of the repentant man-eaters joined the song.

A single tear was drawn from Lejule's eyes as he heard the emotion each werewolf put behind the words, and he wondered how many of them would be left by the time this was over.

As "What I've Done" ended, Jormungand walked up and began reciting the Viking death poem. "Lo, there do I see my father. Lo, there do I see my mother, my sisters and my brothers."

Quartermaine chimed in, "Lo, there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning."

The hundred or so other Viking werewolves raised their voices to finish the poem.

Lejule's own preparation had no other wolves joining their voices with his. He bowed his head and lines in Latin that he had memorized for centuries began pouring forth: the poem "O' Fortuna" from the larger volume Carmina Burana. He looked up once he was finished and saw his brother's army stream into their designated end of Carr Canyon. "You know that we can still end this without bloodshed, do you not, Brother?"

"No. We cannot. Your way would have my werewolves hunting on the fringes of the world, living like animals, completely unable to live lives that would be worthwhile."

"They already are living that way," Lejule muttered. Aloud, he replied, "And your way would result in the extinction of the human race. Our paths are now solidified in the eyes of the spirits. May they determine the fate of the world."

As Lejule finished speaking, Lazar began to charge forward, the rest of his pack following close behind. He had placed his oldest skinwalkers in the core of his battle line and positioned younger and younger skinwalkers out further and further toward the edges. The older ones were faster and, thus, began to pull ahead of the youngsters, automatically forming the blade formation Lazar had envisioned.

Lejule simply watched and waited. When the horde was five hundred meters away, he yelled out, "Now!"

All at once, the five shotgunners positioned four hundred meters ahead of Lejule's army opened up with their AA12s; soon, the various riflemen joined in.


	12. The Battle, Part 2

**One Last Battle Ch. 12: The Battle, Part 2**

Lazar ducked and rolled as the first tidal wave of buckshot slammed into his formation, which slowed at the sudden amount of raw firepower that came their way. He rolled back to his feet and roared, "Onward!"

He then heard his brother roar in return, "Cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war!" With that command, Lejule's army began their own counter-charge as the second wave of buckshot and a fusillade of rifle fire tore at the flanks of Lazar's army.

When the second wave finished, Lazar saw several of Lejule's skinwalkers carrying humans away from the battle line. Among them was Elenore Downey. "That bitch," he muttered as he put more speed into his stride. He then focused on Lejule's line and launched himself at the wolves. When he landed, he crushed one wolf with his body weight, tore a second one's head off with his claws, and cleaved the head of a third beef-eater in half with his sword-club.

At that moment, the two battle lines collided. The storm of buckshot and rifle rounds had blunted the blade formation Lazar had intended; Lejule's formation was not cleaved in two. Then, to make matters worse, some**thing** dropped into the middle of his army and whirled around, hacking nearly twenty werewolves in half with a giant axe. It then grabbed one more and flew off. A few seconds later, the werewolf's body crashed to the ground in front of Lazar. Carved into its flesh were the words: "You thought I would be a puny human. You thought your brother's bloodline would be ended easily. You were wrong. Instead, you awakened the ultimate skinwalker."

Lazar looked up, searching for the new thing that claimed itself to be the ultimate skinwalker. He didn't have to look long, as Owen dropped down just on the other side of the corpse from Lazar. The Alpha man-eater stared at the four-way hybrid that was two feet taller than him. "Owen, fight elsewhere. My brother is mine to fight," Lejule stated as he carved his way through several werewolves toward the two of them.

Owen looked toward Lejule and then took off without a word. "Your lapdog, little brother?" Lazar sneered after the hybrid.

"No. My son," Lejule countered as he swung at Lazar.

The slightly younger, but larger, werewolf blocked the blow, spun, and brought his weapon around in a down- then upward arc. The white werewolf managed to step back just enough to avoid being hit by the obsidian blades. "You're getting slow, old man."

Lejule replied by aiming a horizontal cut at Lazar's neck. The latter barely ducked under the nodachi blade; several light reddish-brown half-hairs went flying. "As are you."

Lazar growled and punched Lejule full in the chest, sending his brother flying almost a hundred feet. Before he could pursue, the battle closed the gap between them and forced them to begin fighting their way toward each other.

Xena carried Ben away from the picket line as fast as her jaguar legs could carry them both. She heard a hiss behind her back, looked, and saw Sakkrhin in hot pursuit. "I will desstroy–" He was cut off by a last shotgun blast from Ben's AA12. The spread of 00 buckshot elicited small geysers of blood from the Komodo dragon's chest and head and he was thrown to the ground by the 3.5" magnum cartridge.

"You were saying?" the soldier asked rhetorically.

"Nice shot," the werejaguar complimented as she laid the M.I. Corporal on the ground. "Stay here and you'll most likely survive the battle," she warned as she turned and dove into the melee.

She blocked a blow from the only other user of the Falcata, Iber, shoved his blade out of the way, brought her Saiga up under his chin, and pulled the trigger, sending a 12 gauge deer slug up through his brain cavity. She used the recoil of the shotgun to spin under a horizontal sword swing and plunged her own blade up through a female werecrocodile's lower jaw. Before she could react, Xena smashed her forearm against the back of the blade's curve, driving the blade forward through the half-reptile's brain.

She turned to strike the next werewolf who dared challenge her, but she received a punch in the face from one of the other generals, throwing her to the ground and causing her to lose her grip on the Saiga. "Lazar will reward me well for killing you, traitor."

She looked up and caught sight of the leaf-shaped iron sword the werewolf wielded along with the near-ritualized scars that ran parallel over her eyes. "Nice to see you too, Fianna." She stood and held her own blade out in front of her, point toward her outside angle. "It's been a long time since we've had a good spar."

"Yes. But I will ensure that this will be your last," the Celtic werewolf stated grimly as she lunged and brought her sword down in a chopping arc.

Xena sidestepped, punched the flat of the blade to knock it off of its target, and quickly slashed Fianna across the chest, following the line of her collarbone from directly above the man-eater's heart to her right shoulder. The warrior for whom an entire order of elite warriors was partially named recovered and slammed her sword into the jaguaress's side, carving down to nearly nick the vertebra.

The two tore apart and readied themselves for their next exchange. Xena flipped her blade so that she had a longer reach rather than a powerful inside strike. Fianna twirled her sword around her handpaw. A sudden premonition caused Xena to duck as a second Celtic longsword scythed through the air. "Crap," the Inca muttered as Fianna's husband, Eíreann, joined in the fight. He was the other werewolf for whom the Celtic warrior order was named.

"Your reaction time has improved, Downey," he taunted as he swung at Xena again.

"The name's Xena now," she corrected as she parried the blow and launched a quick jab at his face, hitting him square on the tip of his muzzle.

He stumbled back, pressing his paw against his nose; it came away with a couple of drops of blood clinging to the pads. Before he could comment, a huge chunk of sharpened metal cleaved through his back and came out through his chest. The paralysis was instantaneous. "No one messes with a jaguar warrior and lives. Don't you know that?" Chris taunted as he tore off the top half of the head of the elder male. "I'll leave you to your little cat-fight," he said as he dropped the head, pulled his car-door-axe and ran off to another part of the battle.

Fianna growled in anger, but then she sighed and breathed to calm herself down. "After I've killed you, I'll kill your whelp!" she roared as she lunged at Xena, who brought her own blade up just in time.

In less than one minute, they had pushed their blades beyond their limits and they shattered against each other in their last exchange. Even the falcata's Iberian steel blade had its limits.

"Teeth and claws shall settle this, then," Fianna stated as she tossed away the iron hilt of her sword.

"So it seems," Xena acquiesced as she tossed away the C-shaped hilt of her falcata. She bent one leg forward, one away, pointed one clawed handpaw toward the Celt, and raised the other above her shoulder. "Come forth, and test your skill."

The two females tore at each other with claw and fang, spraying blood all over the ground for several feet in every direction. Then, Fianna grabbed Xena and threw the smaller jaguaress several meters away. Xena felt cold steel underneath her side, felt for it, and heaved her shotgun into line as Fianna pounced. The discharge of the shell sounded incredibly anomalous amidst the sounds of the rest of the battle. The werewolf staggered for a moment before falling backward, several tunnels carved through her skull.

Xena sighed in relief. She then picked herself up off the ground and began placing shots until the magazine ran dry. Then she picked up a fallen beef-eater's gladius and rejoined the melee.

Quartermaine's hammer cleared a path for him through the throng of man-eaters. Then he found himself face-to-face with Lazar's second-in-command. "Pontius Pilate. Are you ready to join your sons in Hel?"

"No. I am ready to avenge them," the elder wolf spit back, tightening his grip on his skeggox.

"Come, then. Mjolnir still drinks the remnants of their blood."

Pilate lunged at Quartermaine swinging his axe with both hands. Quartermaine caught the haft and shoved, knocking the man-eater off-balance. By the time he had brought his hand back to his hammer's haft and begun to swing it, Pilate had reset his defense and managed to knock the massive hammerhead with his axe. However, Quartermaine managed to use the momentum to bring the twenty pounds of stone around in an arc and up into Pilate's crotch. He heard the elder's pelvis and several vertebra shatter, but the wolf managed to stay upright.

The man-eater jabbed the blunt portion of the axe-head into Quartermaine's gut and then tried to chop the repentant's head in half. The 1100+ year-old werewolf caught the haft of the axe and shoved the head of Mjolnir into Pilate's belly. The latter stumbled back as Quartermaine readied another swing. However, Pilate quickly swung his axe into the haft of the hammer, severing the head. Unable to compensate for the sudden loss of weight from his weapon, Quartermaine spun and fell.

The eight-thousand-plus-year-old man-eater seized the opportunity and slammed the blade into Quartermaine's body. However, he didn't get his kill blow. Instead, Quartermaine redirected the axe blade so that it slammed into and through his cheek and collar rather than the centerline of his head and neck. He then kicked Pilate back a few paces, forcing him to let go of his axe, and then he pulled himself back to his feet, leaving the axe and a good portion of his flesh on the ground.

The former Roman soldier drew one of the only weapons he had kept from that old life: his old spatha. The former Viking, however, had his claymore, a blade nearly twice the size of the spatha. Quartermaine raised his blade above his head and held it ready to strike. "Ah, _la poste de falcone_, the Guard of the Hawk. I see that you retained some of my lessons in swordsmanship," Pilate pointed out as he began to circle around his, very temporary, former replacement. (Back when Quartermaine was still a man-eater, he had managed to outfight Pilate and became Lazar's beta-male, the second-in-command.)

"Indeed. I have added a few of my own touches to the techniques, but they are still largely yours."

"Well then, I know just how to get around _la poste_, then," Pilate said as he lunged forward, aiming a stab at the base of Quartermaine's spine. As the younger werewolf swung his blade down to knock the smaller sword away, the elder took advantage of the smaller weapon's inherent agility by spinning it around his fist and stabbing at Quartermaine's neck.

The repentant managed to pull his neck to the side just enough so that the blade passed through his neck, chin, and cheek without touching his spine. Then, catching the man-eater off-guard, he spun with the impact of the blade, grabbing its sword guard with one hand while stabbing his claymore through the back less-than-an-eighth of Pilate's neck with the other. "Like I said, I added some of my own tricks."

Pilate produced a stuttering laugh. "Good, but not good 'nough," he growled, his speech impeded by the slight spinal damage, as he grabbed the side of Quartermaine's head and pulled, throwing Quartermaine away. He stumbled for a second, some of the nerve connections between his brain and his legs severed, before drawing his last weapon, a Ruger-built SR-1911. "Now you die, whimpering pup."

"You know that that's not fair, right?"

"Y–" He never got to complete his reply.

Another werewolf ran up and ran his big bowie knife through Pilate's back, stating, "Then you'll understand if I even the odds." The big blade that narrowed to a point with its knuckle-duster grip was unique. Coupled with the near-black fur that covered two-thirds of his arms, legs, and the left and right third of his head, the blade confirmed the identity of the new arrival as Ethan. He then yanked the blade out, flipped it in his grasp, and punched the man-eater in the back of the head, tearing more of the spinal cord and making the elder wolf bawl in pain. The young werewolf pulled back and announced, "And this is for making me eat that young boy!" He swung the blade forward with a roar.

The Beta man-eater took a single lurching step, and then his head fell forward and tumbled to the ground. His legs folded under him, left then right and his body collapsed backwards, blood splattering from the base of his severed neck and covering nearly a square foot of the grass that was above his shoulders.

Ethan knelt and reached a hand out to Quartermaine, helping the older werewolf back to his feet. He then grabbed Pilate's spatha and stabbed it into the corpse's sheathed manhood before raking his claws over the dead man-eater's torso nearly a dozen times. To finish venting his hatred of Lazar's second, he grabbed the 1911 and emptied it into the dead wolf's head before splitting it with his knife.

"You done?" Quartermaine asked.

Panting as his fury began to lessen, Ethan replied, "Yeah." He turned to his mentor and explained, "I never wanted to eat people. When that bastard found out that there was a werewolf among the pack that wasn't a man-eater, namely me, he actually caught a boy and literally forced me to devour the kid." He closed his eyes and hung his head, and the fur under his eyes began to soak with tears. "He couldn't have even been ten years old."

Quartermaine laid a hand on his shoulder and coaxed, "Well then, let's continue to avenge that child, and every child that has ever been devoured by the wolves we used to run with."

Ethan raised his head to meet the old repentant's gaze and confirmed, "Yes. Let's."


	13. The Battle, Part 3

**One Last Battle, Ch. 13: The Battle, Part 3**

Lejule struck down another man-eater that tried to attack him as he gazed about the battlefield. As he examined the situation, his heart sank. His men were good fighters, but Lazar had a serious numerical advantage. While a beef-eater is twice as powerful as a man-eater of the equivalent age, Lazar had brought more than three times the number of werewolves to the fight.

"Svoloch!" yelled someone behind him.

Lejule spun just in time to block a Russian cavalry saber. "Viktor. You were such a good wolf. What changed?" He shoved the large wolf away and dropped into a ready combat stance.

"I was shown the light. Human flesh is far better than animal," the Russian alpha replied as he set up his own stance.

The two began a slow circle around each other. Every few seconds, one would probe the other's defenses, but there would be nothing to exploit. Then, Lejule showed the superiority of the katana against nearly any other sword in existence. He dodged a downward swipe from Viktor, then turned and smashed the edge of his blade into the flat of the saber. The lighter sword stood no chance, and the entire blade beyond the three-inch mark from the sword-guard was sheared away by the razor-edge of the katana.

Ducking under a return meant-to-behead swipe, the Russian rolled to the side and picked up a fallen beef-eater's wakizashi. Despite it being a weapon he hadn't used in centuries, his muscle memory rose to the challenge, literally, and he was soon matching Lejule swish for strike. They were landing some wounds on each other, but none were life-threatening and neither combatant was ready to quit.

However, the choice to end the combat was not up to them. A thick coil of red-,

black-, and cream-scaled muscle wrapped around Viktor's torso, and, with a sickening wet series of pops, several bones were crushed. When the coil unwound, the former Alpha fell to the ground with limp legs.

Lejule raised half of his brow in question to the serpent, to which Hister explained with a shrug, "Broke his back. And a few pairs of ribs." Then the Sinaloan Milk Snake slithered off to participate elsewhere in the battle.  
The old white werewolf, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, walked over to the fallen Russian, placed the edge of his sword at the base of the latter's neck, and asked, "Yield?"

With a defeated sigh, Viktor replied, "I yield."

"Das vadanya, comrade." Lejule knelt down, shook his opponent's hand, and walked away for another fight.

After breaking Viktor's back, Hister wove his way through the battlefield, breaking the occasional man-eater's back or neck as he went. After a few minutes of that tactic, he ran into Tanya. "What's your score?"

"I'm up to six so far. You?"

"Twelve."

"There ain't no way a snake's outscoring me," she retorted as she ducked under a claw-swipe from one of the opposing werecoyotes.

Hister took advantage of the miss and whip-lashed his tail over her head, impacting the coyote's neck with the proper bone-shattering force. As the man-eater dropped like a sack of bricks, the weresnake smiled and gloated, "Thirteen."

"Showoff," the Gila monster playfully whined as she straightened her fingers and punched her claws through the back of the yawning maw of an oncoming werewolf. "Seven."

They continued dancing around and over each other, killing werewolves and other man-eaters left and right. By Tanya's eighteenth kill and Hister's twentieth, they had cleared some breathing room. "Not bad, little lizard," the milk snake stated as he patted her shoulder.

"Not bad yourself, serpent."

"You two may be decent in a fistfight, but I'll bet I'm better when a blade is involved," declared a deep voice from Tanya's left. They both looked and spotted on old, light rust-colored werewolf carrying a sword-club that looked somewhat like a cricket bat with obsidian chips along the edges in one hand and a pair of Renaissance-era basket-hilted claymores in the other. Tossing the metal swords to the two reptilian skinwalkers, he settled into something vaguely resembling a fencing stance.

Both the lizard and the snake picked up the claymores and tried their best to mimic the fencing stance that Lazar was using; their jitters told all who were watching that they had never used a sword in their lives.

Hister struck first, aiming a u-patterned slash at Lazar, who parried with his own claws, not even needing his maquahuital.

Tanya's strike that came on the heels of Hister's was a tad more successful, but it was still parried, the Alpha man-eater catching the blade with the flat of his own and then kicked the Gila monster away.

Before the milk snake could react to the deflection of his blow, Lazar slapped the flat of the Aztec weapon against the side of the serpent's head, and the latter twisted and fell flat on his humanoid abdomen.

"Pick on someone your own size, Lazar," Lejule said to announce his return to the single combat.

"Time to die." Lazar stepped forward to engage his older brother, but Hister recovered and coiled his tail around the red wolf before the latter could take a second step. Before the scaly bands could tighten around the snake's prey, the old werewolf slammed his elbow into the bottom of the black-scaled jaws, climbed out of the muscular prison and growled. Even further, before the Pueblan milk snake could shake the stars from his vision, Lazar leapt up over the top of his prey's head, grabbed the base of his skull in his jaws, and, when he landed, yanked with all of his strength. That strength was enough to shatter the upper vertebrae and the occipital bone and throw over a ton and a half of snake nearly twenty feet. The weresnake was dead before his twenty-seven foot body crashed and slid across the ground. "Now that that annoyance is removed..."

He turned around just in time to block a slash from Tanya's sword. His responding punch knocked her to the ground, and he spun with the momentum and brought his serrated obsidian blade around in a downward slash to behead her. However, Lejule's nodachi slid into position to block the ancient design of sword. "Leave them out of our duel, brother." He flicked his blade up, making Lazar stumble backward. "You and I shall settle this conflict. En garde."

Lazar and Lejule stepped to their left, sizing each other up for the second time that night. However, as they took their fourth step, the light around them changed. They, like all of the werewolves on the field, felt the sudden rush of energy and power that flowed through their veins. Everyone looked up and saw the moon as it began to turn blood red. "The blood moon is upon us! To victory!" Lazar bellowed as he swung at Lejule. The older wolf ducked under the blow and grabbed up one of the claymores. With the elder man-eater's return blow, the steel blade shattered and Lejule barely managed to get out of the way of obsidian-edged block of wood as it continued on without even slowing down.

Lejule ducked under a third swing and then tackled his brother to the ground. He dug his claws into the sword-club and rammed his elbow into the younger werewolf's forearm, breaking both of the bones there and breaking Lazar's grip on his weapon. Tossing it away, the oldest werewolf in existence stood up and said, "Now we shall fight on an even scale."

Regaining his own footing, Lazar replied, "So be it."

At once, they set upon each other with teeth and claws, occasionally ducking under a blow from an intruder on their duel before tearing a limb off or a throat out and returning to their duel, sending geysers of blood shooting and pieces of flesh flying up to nearly twenty feet in the air. However, because of their age and the blood moon's effects, their wounds healed almost instantly.

"Well, this is getting nowhere, fast."

"No kidding."

"What now?"

Rather than answer with words, Lazar punched Lejule in the gut, collapsing most of the organs in that area and snapping the floating ribs like twigs. The elder brother coughed, stumbled back and to the side, and dropped to his knees as he tried to regain his breath.

Before the younger brother could advance, a torn-apart werewolf corpse landed between them. The two elder werewolves followed the trajectory of the corpse and saw a glow of white in the middle of a crowd of man-eaters that looked frightened. Every couple of seconds, they saw a small werewolf jump from one spot to another, ripping an enemy apart here, crumpling a skull there.

"What is that?"

"She is the result of a human that has bonded with the wolf spirit."

One rather stupid newcomer to the circle charged forward and was rewarded by having his muzzle grabbed and, with that anchor point, Tori tore out and curled the poor wolf's spine, all the way down to the tail. The man-eater never even managed a squeak.

"I do not know how you coerced that spirit to fight on your side, but not even it will even your odds. Attack!"

The two brothers resumed their brawl. At least twenty lesser man-eaters pounced toward Astoria. She ducked and spun, killing four werewolves just through the virtue of having their pounces collide and bury their jaws in each other's heads. In an utterly incomprehensible flurry of motion, she flicked her claws up through the head of one, punched the cervical vertebrae of a second out of alignment, drove her footpaw through a third's skull just above the teeth, folded a fourth over her knee, and crushed a fifth's medulla oblongata with her jaws.

Lazar surprised Lejule, however, when he decided to go for more or less disabling blows. One punch was directed to the white werewolf's knee, shattering the patella. The younger followed that blow with a chop to the lower knee of the same leg, creating identical damage and throwing Lejule to the ground. Before he could recover, Lazar further tried to disable his body by kicking him in the chest, snapping his sternum and a couple of ribs like brushwood (The floating ribs had mended themselves by this time.). More importantly, the kick threw Lejule about thirty or forty feet. As Lejule struggled to get back on his feet with two shattered knees, Lazar took his time and stalked toward his intended prey.

"I never figured you to be this weak, brother," he taunted as he spread his arms and further spread his claw-tipped fingers.

Before he got a chance to strike, a near-white blur flew by and layed Alpha man-eater's stomach open with a blade-tipped pole. "Leave my Alpha alone," the she-wolf challenged as she held a naginata between him and her.

Lejule, the damage to his bones still preventing him from regaining his footing, tried to caution his Alpha female, "No, he's too powerful, Viridian." But, all that came out was a spurt of blood, letting him that the broken ribs had pierced his lungs. To rectify that problem, he dug his claws into his chest and pulled the damaged bones back into place.

He looked up to see Viridian practically dancing around his brother, flicking the six-foot weapon at the bigger, older werewolf from time to time. The wounds inflicted were a nick here or a cut there. "How amusing, having a girl fight your battle for you." However, after a minute of that dance, at the end of which she lopped off his tail, he stated, "That's it." Lazar then grabbed the naginata's blade, snapped it, grabbed its shaft, and tugged.

Put off balance by the maneuver, Viridian stumbled forward and was met with a clothesline from Lazar that shattered her scapulae, clavicle, sternum, humeri, and her first three ribs. She was lucky that her spine remained intact as she was flipped and smashed, shoulder first, into the ground. "No, Viridian." Lazar grabbed her muzzle, lifted her back to her feet, and forced her down to her upper knees, fracturing dozens of bones in the process. "NO!" Lejule roared as Lazar dug his claws into the remnants of Viridian's fractured collar and used that anchor point to push her head back until her spine snapped. Then he pulled upwards, and, painfully slowly, Lejule saw the flesh of her neck begin to shred and break. With a horrid squelch and a crack, her skull popped free from her spinal cord and the corresponding vertebrae.

Tossing both pieces to the side, Lazar boasted, "Is that the best you have, little brother?"

By that moment, Lejule's knees (and his other bones) had mended, allowing him to stand again. The feral snarl he unleashed was almost able to put the sentience of werewolves into the territory of a lie. However, his words were able to repair the damage. "When I kill you, I hope that the spirits rend your soul so thoroughly that you can never reincarnate."

"So be it," Lazar replied. However, his confidence dipped a bit and he felt true fear for the first time since he had been turned into a werewolf. Never had he seen his brother this livid, or this untamed.

Apparently, it was the first time any werewolf had seen the eldest wolf become practically rabid with wrath. All around them, the fighting stopped, and Lazar could swear that he could hear some of them muttering prayers directed to deities that hadn't been prayed to in centuries or millennia. Lazar braced himself for whatever maneuver Lejule would unleash first. Almost surprisingly, the older brother did not charge…or perform any quick maneuver. He simply stalked forward as if they had all the time in the universe to play out their battle. It unnerved Lazar enough that his outward composure cracked and he audibly gulped in fear.

When he was seven feet away, Lejule unleashed his first rapid maneuver. Before Lazar could realize what was happening, his leg was separated from his body, and he was spinning down to the ground. He landed on his back and almost yelped as he saw Lejule casually drop his detached leg on the ground. His brother then stalked up to him, drove his claws into the younger brother's chest, and tore them out, carrying half of Lazar's rib cage, his heart and a lung out with them.

After tossing away the internal parts, Lejule raised his claws to strike again. In response, Lazar raised his arms in a probably futile effort to defend himself and, also for the first time in his life, begged, "Have mercy, please?"

"'Mercy?'" Lejule growled. "The time for mercy or forgiveness has long passed."

Before the elder could strike, they both heard a sound that they hadn't heard in well over eight thousand years.


	14. The Battle, Part 4

**One Last Battle, Ch. 14: The Battle, Part 4**

Despite being the oldest werewolves in existence and under the magnifying influence of the Blood Moon, Lejule's blood ran cold, and Lazar's blood ran still colder than it had. They both looked in the direction of the roar and saw a creature that had not been seen by human or werewolf eyes in those same eight millennia standing on a ridge: a short-face bear.

However, a few details about the bear set it apart from the beast they remembered, the only beast that they could not face alone. First and foremost, it was standing upright in a manner that suggested that it preferred that stature. Second, it had a wood-and-obsidian spear, the likes of which neither brother could place. Third, the bear wore around its neck a silver bear-paw necklace. Fourth, last to be seen due to the bear being nearly silhouetted by the Blood Moon beginning to set behind the beast, it wore clothing, all leather and fur. Then the Bear's gaze focused on them and the two ancient werewolves heard a female voice say, "_This petty squabble ends now_."

As she finished speaking, more bears, all of them the short-face, began assembling along the ridge to either side of their leader. It raised the arm that was holding the spear and roared, the same sound that had distracted the two wolves, and held it forward as all of the bears began to run down the hill that connected the ridge with the valley floor.

When they arrived, it was as if a living freight train had lent its hand to the decision of who was going to win the battle. The first bear to finish its charge batted a man-eater with a single massive forepaw, which was amazingly hand-like, and the werewolf landed in a broken boneless heap well over fifty meters away.

Sensing that the bears were on the side of the beef-eaters, Lejule turned to continue his fight with Lazar. However, Lazar had recovered from the awesome sight first and Lejule met his brother's paw with his face, causing his jaws to snap in half and twist to the side. Before Lazar could maneuver his own jaws to clamp down on Lejule's spine, the color of the sky changed again as the lunar eclipse that caused the Blood Moon ended. And, again, Lejule's agility turned the tables to his advantage as he dodged out of the way of Lazar's next blow and brought his fist down on the back of Lazar's lower knee, shattering bones all the way down to the paw.

Despite the disabling injury, Lazar responded with another hard blow of his own, spinning on his good leg and punching Lejule in the upper knee, telescoping the femur. Both warriors fell away and nursed their injuries for the few seconds required for their healing.

Meanwhile, the lead bear plunged her (yes, it was a "she") spear into the head of a reptilian man-eater whose species she did not recognize. As she pulled the weapon back, she felt a small spray of blood on her back. She looked and saw a werewolf whose head had been split open by one of the modern human projectiles. She turned toward the location she calculated the bullet had come from and saw a young boy, who looked no older than twelve, holding a rifle with smoke wafting from the end of the barrel. She returned the favor by pitching the spear underhand into the skull of a man-eater werewolf that was bearing down on him. He nodded his thanks and returned to supporting a first-night werewolf.

To ensure that the human would stay safe, she used her telepathy and a couple of hand gestures to direct one of her bears to guard the boy with his life. When he moved to his post, he grabbed her spear and tossed it back to her.

She caught it and ran another werewolf through hard enough to lift it off the ground. However, because of how tall the she-bear was, the werewolf was only lifted up to her eye level. It whimpered for a few seconds before she tore its head off and began stalking for new prey.

That was when she saw the spirit-infused Astoria, and she gasped, at first thinking that spirit was taking a personal role in a mortal squabble. When she looked again and saw that was spirit wrapped in a mortal shell, she gasped, again. In her knowledge, this was the first time a spirit had ever deigned to fuse itself with a mere human; the creation of the various skinwalkers did not count.

Then a werewolverine pounced on her back and dug its claws into her shoulders. The bear spun to dislodge the tiresome beast when she suddenly felt it go limp. She turned to see its body on the ground and a beef-eater werewolf with an immense sword tossing her a salute before returning to the battle.

_My child, you have chosen well_, she thought before she returned to her own fight.

After helping the she-bear with her pest, Beowulf returned to the duel he was having with the man-eater's British alpha, Alistair. However, the advantage was definitively in the beef-eater's favor. Every blade the other wolf brought to bear simply snapped like a twig or was shorn in two by Ayaltense's unmatched steel blade. "How about a good, old-fashioned claw-scrap, what-say?"

"Might as well. My blades' quality is bone."

Jamming the nine-foot sword blade-first into the ground, the old hero stated, "This way." He stepped about twelve feet to his right and continued, "Queensbury rules?"

"No-holds-barred, you stupid totter," his counterpart stated as he grabbed the Iberian-steel blade and swung.

"Whoa! That's bloody cheating!" Beowulf shouted as he rolled out of the way.

"No holds barred," Alistair taunted in a sing-song voice as he raised the nearly hundred-pound blade in the air for another swing.

Before he could, a wooden-shafted, stone-headed spear plunged into the lesser wolf's chest. Unbalanced by the shock, he dropped Ayaltense. Before it even hit the ground, Beowulf grabbed the blade, spun three times, and Alistair fell to the ground in seven pieces. He grabbed the spear, turned around, and tossed it back to the she-bear, and he saluted her again.

Lvan and his brother were holding their own; every few seconds, Kris snapped off a shot with the 30.06 hunting rifle to try to drop one of the man-eaters surrounding them while Lvan protected his younger sibling from any wolf that tried to bite, claw, slice, or club him. He was unable to concentrate any effort on trying to kill any of them until the giant bear joined them with a giant version of a Native American war club. Every swing of that club or one of its giant arms dropped a wolf with a crushed skull.

Younger, less powerful wolves fell to Lvan's claws and his father's saber. After a few minutes, the tide of battle shifted away from them, allowing the three of them to rest. The bear looked down at the young wolf and asked, "_First night?_"

"_Yeah. Wait. How could you know?_"

"_It's mine, too._"

"_So, you're a __**were**__bear?_"

"_Yesiree. As is every bear on this battlefield. Our leader, the she-bear with the stone-headed spear, never told us her name, or even her title. We just call her 'The Matriarch.'_"

"_Appropriate._" He thought for a moment. "_How come Lejule never knew about you guys?_"

"_We keep to ourselves. We were the reason one of the mines in the vicinity of Tombstone was abandoned, not flooding._"

Lvan nodded and stood, picking up his sword; his brother, through the rifle, had not stopped contributing. Then the ammo ran out. "_Come on. They still need us._"

The battle was beginning to wind down as the bears cancelled out the man-eaters' numerical advantage and now there were fewer of them then there were beef-eaters and repentant man-eaters.

Still, the battle was far from one-sided. Boudicca and Brocktree were doing their best to pick off man-eaters from distance. However, their activities did not go unnoticed. One elder man-eater led a group away from the main battle and toward the pair of snipers. Boudicca aimed down her Lee-Enfield's sights and pulled the trigger. After the loud *click*, she cycled the bolt and tried again. *Click*. She realized that her weapon was empty. As she reached into her specially designed ammo pouch attached to her belt, she ordered, "Brocktree! Drop them!"

"Sorry, I'm plumb dry."

"Bollocks," she muttered in reply as she drew her combat knife and the, as it were, man-eater strike team came on their position.

The werebadger spun out of the way of the first werewolf that charged him, came fully around, and chopped the wolf across the back of the neck with his forearm. Even though he was relatively young (His earliest adult memory was of fighting Roman legionaries in Britannia.), his being a badger meant that his body was built more for strength and power, so the wolf's cervical vertebrae shattered, and it dropped to the ground, stone dead. "Bloody amateur. What do you think, Boud?"

There was no answer. He looked toward her and saw that she was being torn apart by the elder man-eater; the rest of his "strike team" lay dead at her feet. The badger charged the rust-furred werewolf…and was thrown over the elder's shoulder. As he landed, he saw that the beast, in the same motion that had thrown him, had swung his claws into the female wolf's neck.

In response, she slammed her knife into the male wolf's spine, just missing the nerve clusters at the base of the brain. That was the costliest miss of her life. The male simply reached up, snapped her elbow as if it were a dry leaf, pulled her arm (and the knife) away, and rammed the blade into her head. The badger grabbed his rifle and raised it as the male muttered something in Russian, probably an insult. The man-eater turned just in time to have a reinforced version of an L85 barrel crack across his jaw. At the second blow, both the weapon and the jaws shattered, and the werewolf collapsed from the pain. Brocktree dropped to his opponent's chest knee-first, cracking every single rib. Wasting no time, the werebadger drove his knuckles into the wolf's windpipe, collapsing the small, fleshy tube. As the werewolf sputtered and his airway tried to repair itself, the black, white, and gray-furred skinwalker stepped off and grabbed up Boudicca's rifle, grabbed one of the remaining 5-round stripper clips from her belt pouch, loaded the Lee-Enfield, and drove a single .303 British round into the Russian wolf's head with the words, "For my mate, you son of a bitch."

Laying the weapon on the ground, he knelt by Boudicca's body, pulled her torso onto his lap, and began to weep.

The two alpha brothers had managed to recover their weapons and had returned to their duel. Lazar, seeing his force beginning to falter, began to attack desperately. However, his attacks were short-lived. He swung his maquahuital in an attempt to cut Lejule in half.

The older brother deftly hopped backward, dodging the blow, and then pounced, tackling his younger brother into a mesquite tree. Over the sounds of battle, over the drumbeat of his blood pounding through his ears, Lejule heard the unmistakable sound of vertebrae shattering. He stepped back and Lazar slumped to the ground, the entirety of his body below his lungs severed from their connection to the brain.

Lejule raised his nodachi to behead the alpha man-eater when the other werewolf raised his hand and stated, "Wait!"

"What?"

Lazar bowed his head and, with a few tears soaking the fur under his eyes, muttered, "I would like to see my children. One last time."

In shock, Lejule lowered his blade and worked his jaw several times before uttering, "Your children?"

"Yes. My wife gave birth last week. Triplets."

Lejule gulped back the lump of guilt in his throat. "Do you yield?"

"Yes. I yield," Lazar replied grimly as he cocked his head to the side to reveal his neck for the bite from his brother's blade.

Instead, Lejule sheathed the blade, tossed his head back, and unleashed his victory howl. Immediately, all across the battlefield, the sounds of conflict ceased.

Lazar chuckled with cold irony. "Well, brother, you have achieved victory."

"Yes," Lejule replied sadly as he looked around the battlefield, counting the dead. "But at what cost?"


	15. Revelations

**One Last Battle Chapter 15: Revelations**

Lejule walked along the battlefield, choosing his footing carefully to avoid stepping on one of the many corpses strewn about.

As he passed Hister's massive, inert body, he saw Tanya and Jormungand on their knees. The wereGila Monster was openly sobbing, while the werewolf was comforting her and shedding silent tears.

Further on, one of the bears had fallen. Surrounding the cadaver were the torn carcasses of at least half-a-dozen wolves. _Tough__monsters.__Just__the__way__I__remember__them._

To his left, he saw Loreli exit Astoria's body and, exhausted, the young human girl collapsed, but Ethan rushed to her side and caught her before she hit the ground. Then, each grateful that the other had survived, they shared a kiss.

As he walked on, he felt his foot tap a thick plant stem. He looked down and saw a wild rose that had been entirely untouched by the battle. He knelt and took in the last beautiful fragrance the area would have for months.

He did not know how long he knelt there before a heavy footstep and a massive hand on his shoulder roused him from his meditation. He looked up and over his shoulder and saw that it was the lead bear. His nostrils flared as he caught her scent and noted its familiarity. "Thank you for your help. You turned the tide."

"Yes, though I wish that this kind of intervention was not necessary."

"As do I." Lejule was silent for a moment, and then he stood and, looking the ten-and-a-half-foot she-bear as close to "in the eye" as he could manage, continued, "I apologize, but do I know you?"

"You have known me from the day you were born, Lejule." As Lejule cocked his head to the side quizzically, she added, "Allow me to refresh your memory." Then she placed her palm on his forehead; he hand was so enormous that her fingers hooked over to the back of his head.

Suddenly, numerous memory images flowed through his head. All of them were in regards to his, as it were, second mother, a woman who had been a second mother and the primary spiritual leader to everyone in the tribe. Realizing who the she-bear was, Lejule immediately dropped to one knee and looked at her feet. "My apologies, Shaman, for not greeting you in a manner befitting you—"

"You are forgiven, Lejule. My form has changed drastically since we last saw each other," she gently chastised as she grabbed the eldest werewolf's chin and lifted his eye-line back toward hers.

"Speaking of that, how did you survive my brother's rampage? I thought you had had your abdomen flayed open."

"I did suffer that wound. I managed to stumble and, when the strength in my legs gave out, crawl to the peak of what humans now call 'Miller's Peak.' For that accomplishment, and both impressed with my constitution and pitying my weakened body, Mekhelen, the bear spirit, shared his strength with me the same way Loreli shared her strength with you and Lazar."

"Thus, he turned you into a werebear."

"Yes."

Lejule then saw Lazar stagger toward them. "I apologize, Shaman, but I have brotherly issues to deal with."

"You have my leave," she conceded as she bowed her head and walked away.

As Lazar finished, using his maquahuital as an improvised crutch. "Are you ready?" Lejule asked.

"As I'll ever be."

They began to walk away from the battlefield, and Owen alighted next to the pair. "Mind if I watch?" the ultiwere asked as he folded his wings, clasped behind his back, and began to stroll alongside.

Lejule stopped and turned toward his descendant. "I'm sorry, Owen, but this is something I and my brother must handle alone."

"Oh. Okay. Um, I'll see if anyone needs my help."

As Owen walked off briskly, Lazar asked, "What is his relation to you? He can't truly be your son."

"Quite right. His relation to me is separated by about four hundred generations and the addition of three other species of skinwalkers."

"Which species?"

"Bear, bat, and tiger."

"There was a werebat in our history?"

"Apparently. Through research, I am inclined to think that the bat's identity was Vlad Drakul of Romania, better known as Vlad the Impaler."

"Figures that it would be the real-life Dracula."

Lejule looked at his brother in askance, but let the matter drop. They continued in silence until they reached the encampment Lazar and the other man-eaters had inhabited for the past just-less-than-a-month. The dependants (children) and a few of the mothers had been left behind out of necessity.

Pilate's wife was one of the first to greet them. She opened her mouth to ask about her husband, but Lazar's expression told her the answer before she could ask. As she hung her head, her cheek fur began to dampen with tears. The female werecoyote turned slowly and began to slowly trudge back to her waiting children.

Lejule, for the second time in as many hours, swallowed back his guilt and his tears. Then they entered the cave-like alphas' den that had been carved out of the hill. Immediately, three week-old werewolf-werecoyote hybrids rushed out and, stiffly, Lazar crouched to give all three of his children a hug while his brother leaned against the entryway.

"Daddy, who is that?" Athena asked as she pointed over her father's shoulder at Lejule.

"My brother, and, thus, your uncle."

"The one who hates you?"

"No, he doesn't hate me. We just don't agree often."

"Why is he here?" Alyssa demanded sternly. Then he countenance turned stricken. "Unless…"

Lazar nodded regretfully. "I failed, and our lives are now over."

The younger of the two werecoyote sisters stepped forward and joined in the hug. As he watched the familial love, Lejule felt the tears he had been holding back so hard begin to flow, and his heart broke for his brother for the first time in almost ten thousand years. Despite his original policy to not leave a single man-eater alive, his mind raced for a method to circumvent his own guiding principle. Finally, he arrived at a solution. "My brother, would you mind terribly if you went into exile?"

"How do you mean?"

"There are some islands that Man does not know about and will not know about for some time. I could take you to one of them, and you could live for an inordinate amount of additional time in peace."

"And my family?"

"You may take them with you." Lejule looked toward the children and smiled. "I would not want any child to grow up without a father. Not as we were."

Lazar smiled as well as tears of joy welled up in his eyes. "That means more to me than you can ever know, Lejule."

The elder brother's smile broadened. "However, you cannot reveal yourself to humanity, or to skinwalkers ever again. If you do, they would kill you on sight. Among skinwalkers, you have earned the reputation of humanity's number one enemy, and the greatest barrier to both species' continued existence."

"I understand." He looked back at his wife of nine and a half thousand years. "What do you think, Alyssa?"

She smiled for the first time since the two brothers had arrived. "That sounds wonderful, honey." And then she began to hum. Lejule recognized the tune as Mary Magdalene's entry solo from "Jesus Christ: Superstar."

He then felt Lazar's tension fade. "I know the tune so well, she doesn't even have to sing the words to calm me down," the younger brother chuckled.

Lejule thought for a few more seconds before adding, "I am feeling particularly generous tonight. I shall extend the offer of exile to the entirety of your pack's surviving warriors and dependents."

Lazar's eyes widened in shock. "You would do that for me? For my wolves?"

"Yes."

Lazar gulped and more tears formed. "I did not think that I could love you as a true brother, anymore, but you have earned my affection again."

"Well, do not take it too far, and I will accept it," Lejule quipped. "I must go. My pack is awaiting confirmation of your death."

"That report will be sorely exaggerated."

They both laughed at the allusion to Samuel Langhorn Clemens; he was better known as Mark Twain. "Have a nice rest of eternity, my brother."

"You as well."

Lejule walked off, waving goodbye to his brother, and then he stopped. "Oh, yes. Before I forget…" he stated loudly with a grin.

"What?"

Rather than reply verbally, Lejule walked back over to the other alphas, knelt, and bit off Lazar's tail a couple of inches from the root. "Now, we are even."

Huffing dramatically, Lazar replied, "Well, I guess I owe you my tail for taking yours."

Lejule simply smiled and walked away, leaving the three-foot bundle of fur, minimal muscle, and bone on the floor of the dugout cave. When he arrived back at the battlefield, Quartermaine asked, "Is the monster dead?"

"His sentence has been served," Lejule stated, delicately dancing on the line between the truth and a lie. Changing the subject, he asked, "How many of his men have converted?"

"Of those who remained alive, over half. All of the ones who had converted before the eclipse, interestingly, broke that promise. Most of them were slain; not even a dozen remain. Strangely, the bodies of several man-eaters are unaccounted for, the oldest of them being the Komodo dragon, Sakkhrin. But, back to the main subject, when will we kill those man-eaters who will not convert?"

"Let them have a mourning period for their fallen leader. After that, I shall deal with them, personally."

Quartermaine looked slightly puzzled, but he did not object. He simply replied, "Well, it is always your decision of what happens to man-eater prisoners. I do have one request, however."

"What is it, my friend?"

The old Viking leaned in close and whispered, "Make sure they suffer." Then he spun and walked away.

_In__some__ways,__I__'__m__sure__they__will,_ Lejule contemplated to himself. He walked over to the corpse of his former alpha female, lifted her chest off the ground by her shoulders, and howled. So much sorrow and volume was poured into the howl that humans in their homes on the military base several miles away awoke and shuddered.

Two days later; Christmas Eve

Trenton, New Jersey

"So. I guess the end of the world didn't happen," Owen stated as he looked out at the New Jersey snowfall.

"Actually," Lejule countered as he pulled his flute away from his lips. "The Mayan legends actually state that the Fifth Age of Man ends this year." He looked at the clock on the wall and added, "And the transition between the Fifth and Sixth ages shall begin in about two minutes."

"Wha-?"

Then the television set turned on. "From the NBC News world headquarters in New York, this is NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams."

"Good evening. First on our broadcast tonight is a story that redraws the line between myth and reality. Take a look."

The screen switched to a view of Lejule's living room, facing the fireplace, where a blazing Yule log crackled. Standing in front of it, nearly disappearing behind his oversized black leather duster, was the beef-eater alpha, himself. He turned his head to give the camera a rear three-quarter view and began, "Greetings, my friends. I am Lejule. I have watched you for a long time, waiting for your interracial tolerance to reach a level that has not been in existence for many millennia. That was a time when my kind and yours coexisted in harmony. We have been waiting for a time when your cultures would redevelop that level of acceptance.

"Well, I believe," he turned fully toward the camera,

"that time," he bowed his head and closed his eyes,

"is now," he finished as he looked back at the camera with the amber eyes of a wolf.

Owen's eyes widened. "You didn't-?" In the room, Lejule smiled slyly.

Back on the screen, Lejule had fully shifted and continued, "Yes, I am a skinwalker. A werewolf, in lay terms. But, that is not a reason to be alarmed. My kind are not mindless monsters. We do not possess an instinctive craving for human flesh. We live among you, alongside you, as we have for ten thousand years. One of us could be your neighbor, your best friend, your battle buddy. Some of us have even interbred with humans. We are human at heart and, as a whole, have only the goals of acceptance and peace among you."

Brian came back on and stated, "We have been told by the CIA that the video is entirely authentic, and you can see the video in its entirety on our website, .com. With more on this subject, we have cryptozoologist and paranormal researcher, Doctor Ulfric Abner, professor of biology at the University of Phoenix. Doctor, could something this outrageous actually exist?"

"Oh, most certainly."

"With that being the case, how could creatures-?"

"Let me stop you right there, if I may. These skinwalkers are not 'creatures.' They are human beings who have been granted a fraction of the power of a predatory animal spirit, including the ability to assume a form that hybridizes their natural, human form with that of the animal whose spirit shared its power with the skinwalker."

"Okay. Um. Well, if they have existed for as long as Mr. Lejule claimed in the video, how have they managed to stay hidden from us?"

"By hiding in plain sight, really. Why do you think we have so many stories that involve people turning into beasts? Also, due to their long lives, they have made friends in world governments and media outlets, allowing them to keep some news from being reported."

"So, if one of them changes from in front of a crowd, the skinwalkers can convince the media to ignore the incident."

"Precisely."

"If this isn't too personal a question, how do you know all of this?"

Laughing, Ulfric replied, "Normally I would refuse to answer that kind of question, but, since skinwalkers are now public knowledge, I will tell you. I am a blood-kin."

"'Blood-kin?'"

"It is a skinwalker term for a child born of a human and a skinwalker. Before you ask, on my mother's side. She is a thirty-thousand-year-old Japanese fox-walker, or 'kitsune.'"


	16. Epilogue

**One Last Battle: Epilogue**

At that moment, Lejule muted the TV. "Come. I have something to show you."

Owen was about to protest, wanting to see more of the interview, but he saw that the news segment's time limit had run out. "Fine." He got up and followed Lejule to the basement.

Once there, Lejule walked over to a door Owen had wondered about and pressed his lupine handpaw against a scanner mounted next to the door frame, which possessed slots for claws, and after numerous locks unlatched, the door swung inward to reveal an elevator that looked like it belonged in a mine shaft rather than a home. "What I am about to show you has never been seen by someone as young as you. You might want to hold on to the railing," he finished as he flipped a switch. Immediately, the elevator began to rattle violently as it descended. "Welcome," he began again as hundreds of shelving units came into view, "to the Library."

"Oh…my…"

"Most werewolves have that reaction." The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. "Feel free to look around."

"How long have you been collecting these books?"

"Since a fire damaged the Great Library of Alexandria in forty-eight B.C.E. I have tasked every pack around the world to collect one copy of every literary work produced by humanity. It was never a consolidated collection until 1867, after this facility's construction was completed. Those shelves contain translations and copies of every publication. Behind them are iron and glass cases containing the originals. The New Library had a new room built into the North Wall fifteen years ago to accommodate a computer catalogue. Speaking on that subject…" He paused as he called a unique albino (red irises, pale fur and skin) werewolf over. "Geoff, what is the status of the catalogue?"

The albino werewolf beamed. "It is ninety-three percent complete with well over twelve terabytes of data." He held up a heavy-duty plastic storage container. "Portable hard drives containing the first eight terabytes, and I estimate that the rest will be portable by tomorrow morning."

Accepting the container with a thank-you, Lejule commented, "That is the best timing possible, my friend." He nodded toward the hybrid and added, "Show Owen around, would you please?" as he walked back to the elevator.

As the elder werewolf left, Owen looked at the albino and asked, "How long have you known my ancestor?"

Geoff's eyes widened dramatically. "You're descended from the mighty Lejule?" At Owen's nod, the werewolf continued, "Oh, I would love to see your wolf form, and see if the wolf side aged as its progenitor has."

"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that."

"Go on, go on."

"Alright. Don't say I didn't warn you." With that, Owen shifted to his hybrid form, now only requiring a minute and a half.

When he was done, the albino stood gawking. "Complicated is one thing. Worse-than-convoluted is quite another. How did that happen?"

"Turns out that I'm descended from four separate species of skinwalkers: wolf, bear, vampire bat, and tiger," the hybrid replied matter-of-factly.

"I won't even ask how a vampire bat could have a skinwalker version." He paused before stating, "But, I often get sidetracked when I meet someone new. You asked how I met Lejule, or something close, and I will answer. There was a time, back in the early years of religion and civilization, when albinos like me were often persecuted as freaks. I found Lejule and begged for lycanthropy to escape my human life. As I had no friends or family, he agreed and used an amulet to change me."

"I'm guessing that it was a rough time for Lejule and the other werewolves, as well," Owen half asked, half stated.

"You could say that," was the reply. "That was the time when they first went underground in human society."

"What year was it?"

"Eh, I forget. Somewhere between three and five thousand years B.C.E." He clapped his handpaws together and continued, "Now, however, we must move on to something far more important. What would you like to look at first?"

Owen thought for a moment before replying, "How is the Library's copy of the Bible?"

"Do you want my opinion or an objective answer?" the albino werewolf replied flatly.

"Facts first, please."

"We have bibles in Hebrew, Coptic, and English, and each is complete down to the last symbol and character. But I think that you want the English version," he lectured as he led Owen through the aisles. He stopped at one bookshelf that had the word "Coexistence" written on it in the manner as seen on more than a few bumper stickers. "Ah. Here we are. 'The Texts of the Major Religions.' They are organized by age from the oldest religion to the youngest; in that order, we have Hinduism, Judaism, the Buddha's journals, Christianity, and Islam. The bible is split between its main writers. The Torah, its first five books, is in its proper place on the Jewish shelf. The rest is on the Christian shelf. Have fun," the albino finished as he spun on his central paw pad and began to walk away.

"Wait." As the elder stopped mid-step, the relative youth continued, "What's your opinion on the Bible?"

"Are you sure you want to hear it? You won't like it."

"I'm sure. Shoot."

"Alright. Don't say I didn't warn you. It's complete and utter crap served on a gold platter by people who thought they knew how the world worked when they didn't know squat."

Owen stood dumbly for a second before stating, "Ouch."

"'Course, when you look at the bible as an era-specific code-of-conduct textbook, which was what it was first written as, then it was rather useful…for that particular time period. In fact, most books are time-sensitive. Most of the bad news surrounding the religions has come from modern interpreters who don't realize the time-specific nature of the holy texts."

"I guess," Owen replied as he reached for one of the most famous Gnostic gospels, Phillip, and began to flip through it, looking for a specific passage. When he found it, he began to recite, "And the companion of the Savior was Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples, and he used to kiss her on the–'oh…hmm."

"Not what you expected, eh?"

"Not at all."

As Owen put the book back on the shelf, Geoff asked, "So, anything else you wanted to look at?"

"Um, yes, actually. This is going to sound silly, and probably a little crazy, but are there any books on dragons here?"

"The albino guffawed. "Are you kidding? They're right this way."

The elder led the hybrid down the aisles until they came to a pair of bookcases emblazoned with stylized dragons of the sort found on medieval coats-of-arms. "Both of these–?" Owen began with a gasp.

Geoff nodded. "Yes. Devoted entirely to literature on the subject of dragons. Knock yourself out, kid." He then turned and left before the twenty-nine-year-old could ask any further questions.

Owen was flabbergasted at the werewolf's rudeness, but he waved it aside and began to look through the different text volumes. Most were medieval illuminated manuscripts (that were more flights of fancy than fact) painstakingly translated into modern English. One, however, was a modern work that most definitely had never been seen by human eyes. "No way," the ultiwere muttered incredulously. But it was true. He pulled the book off the shelf and read the title and by-line. "My Decades Spent with the Dragon, Freifeuer (Freeflame) by Lejule. What else have you written in secret, dad?" he mused as he opened the book and began to read.

Decades was structured more like a diary than a novel, but that didn't detract from the engrossing qualities. The first entry was in early 1677 and detailed the ancient werewolf's first meeting with the dragon.

"Until today, I thought that we werewolves were one of the only creatures with mythical status that Man had not managed to exterminate. However, this morning, I found that a creature more majestic and powerful than I has survived mankind's genocidal desire to eliminate any other creature that can kill them.

"I had been hiking in the Alps bordering the Rhine, near the Swiss border, when a massive shadow blanketed the area around me. I darted back the way I had come and readied my lance. By then, the beast had landed and turned around. Its tail came up from behind me and swept my feet out from under me. As I fell, a massive, scale-covered, hand-like paw crashed down onto my chest, pinning me to the ground. As the monster scrutinized its prospective meal, I was able to study my temporary captor: a mighty and massive dragon, standing more than four times my wolf form's height with a wingspan twice that. Coppery scales covered its body, with the exception of its cream-colored ventral scales. Its claws and horns were a beautiful reddish tint of gold.

"It then spoke, revealing itself to be male, and accusing me of being a dragon slayer, a charge I emphatically denied. I shifted to my wolf form and attempted to push his forefoot off of my chest. As his muscles strained to keep the paw in place, he complemented my strength, but once more accused me of being a dragon slayer. Again, I denied the charge, this time swearing by the Dragon Spirit, Anongarum.

At that, the dragon stepped back, apologized, and introduced itself. When translated, the name was 'Freeflame.'"

Another entry, dated late 1679, caught Owen's attention.

"Today, Freeflame introduced me to his son, Rhineheart. Now, figuring out a dragon's age is almost always approximate to within a decade or so; dragons do not keep time the same way we and the humans do. However, I could pinpoint Rhineheart's age to the nearest few months: early to mid-1606, shortly before the Jamestown colonists left for the New World. That means that the young dragon is seventy-three years old. However, dragons age at about one thirty-sixth of the rate that humans do; thus, Rhineheart is the dragon equivalent of a two-year-old.

"Despite his youthful age, Rhineheart is a very mature being. He has complete mastery of four languages and is currently learning three more concurrently. Also, he has an advanced grasp of science, math, and history, through private tutoring from his father. I have volunteered to assist the whelp in his studies, and both dragons have agreed.

"That is not to say that the younger dragon has matured past the point of having fun. Far from it, the drake is rather playful, and we wrestled several times. While he has but a fraction of his old man's strength, I let him win about half the matches."

Over the next few hours, Owen devoured the life stories of young Rhineheart and the elder Freeflame. Then he came to the final entry, dated for the middle of the December of 1728.

"During my prior visit, Freeflame had taken me aside and told me that his life was soon coming to an end, as he could feel his massive heart was slowing down. Dragons do not age as humans or animals do. Instead of having their bodies gradually physically decline over the latter half of their lives, dragons internally age dramatically over their last few living years, but they never age externally.

"While I knew that fact, I also knew that dragons usually lived for at least another century or so. However, I still readily agreed to look after Rhineheart in the event of Freifeuer's death.

"I went back the next day to try to gently break the news to the whelp, but, when I arrived, the young dragon was laying against his father's side, crying and asking for the elder to wake up. Unfortunately, from one of the scents wafting from the mighty elder dragon, I discerned that Freifeuer, like all mortal creatures, had lost life's final battle and would never wake up.

"Remembering the way I felt the year my own father died, I stepped forward to console Rhineheart. Following this paragraph, I have included a complete transcript of the conversation we had.

'Rhineheart, I know how you feel.'

"That alerted me to what stage of grief the whelp was in: raging isolationism. However, unless we have someone to help us through our grief, the depression that follows can be ruinous.

'I will never leave you. I give you my word that, when you need me, I will be there.'

"He was silent for a moment, and then the exhausted despair stage set in, and he collapsed, sobbing, into my arms. After several seconds, he asked, 'When will the hurt go away?'

"With tears in my own eyes, I replied, 'It will not. Eventually, however, you will learn to live with it.'

'I…I don't know if I can live without him.'

'Let me tell you something someone very wise once told me. The people we love live with us forever. In here, and here.' I touched two fingers to the crown of his head and the scales over his heart as I spoke. 'You would honor your father most by continuing to live life and not letting the pain of the loss stop you.'

"Thus ended the experiences I had with Freeflame. As I had promised the elder dragon, I will check in on Rhineheart every ten years, sooner if he needs me."

Owen closed the book, wiped the tears from his eyes, and placed the literary work back in its home slot on the shelf. Then an idea formed in his mind and quickly evolved into desire. He got up, shifted back to his human form, and walked back to the elevator. After flipping the switch, he was thrown to the floor by the mechanism's jolting movements. When it stopped, Owen berated himself for forgetting Lejule's advice, and then he set off to find the ancient werewolf.

The beef-eaters' alpha was sitting on his bed, resting his feet on the storage bin. "Hey, you made it out within the same day. Most visitors spend a week or more for their first visit." He tapped the container and added, "You want to help me deliver these to humanity in the morning?"

"Sure. On one condition."

"Oh dear."

"Can we go see Rhineheart afterward?"

"You got your claws on Decades, didn't you?" Lejule sighed. With another sigh at Owen's nod, the werewolf continued, "Well, I guess it would do no harm."

"Yes! Thank you, Dad."

"But…you have to be on your absolute best behavior, Owen," the elder warned.

"I will."

The next evening, the ancestor and descendant were waiting for the boarding call for their boat to France when the area around the televisions went silent. Though each screen was set to a different network, they were all covering the same story.

"A mysterious package was left on the front door step of the Library of Congress this morning with a note reading 'For the enlightenment of the World.' After the D.C. bomb squad determined that the package did not contain explosives, Library curators found numerous portable hard drives. While only a fraction of the data has been accessed so far, we have been told that what might be on the drives are complete copies of tens of thousands of ancient books."

"Thirty two thousand nine hundred fifty two, to be precise," Lejule muttered under his breath. Only Owen heard.

At that moment, the PA system announced that their voyage had just begun boarding.

Three weeks later, Lejule was paddling a rowboat down the Rhine River. Owen was sitting in the same boat, and both of them were in their beast forms. "Are you sure we can't just walk there, Dad?"

"Trust me. I've tried. The only path to Rhineheart's cave is via the river. Where he lives, the rocks are too sharp to climb."

"Ah." They sat in silence for a few minutes before Owen asked, "What's he like now?"

"How do you mean?"

"Since his father's death, how has Rhineheart's personality changed?"

"Lejule sighed, "Oh. Well, the young dragon is more serious and cynical. And the subject of his father still reopens deep old emotional wounds."

"Just like me," Owen mouthed. Aloud, he replied, "So, don't mention Freifeuer in front of the late dragon's son."

"Right." Lejule steered the little boat into a cave that was huge, yet, strangely, completely unnoticeable unless one was right on top of it. "Nature is the ultimate illusionist," the werewolf replied to the unspoken question. After a few more minutes, the water became too shallow for their small vessel, so they got out and began to walk. Soon, they came to a second cave entrance branching off from the main cavern. At that, Lejule turned to Owen and stated, "Owen, you'll be the first stranger go visit Rhineheart in centuries. I don't know how he'll react."

They walked into the second cave, and the young hybrid immediately queried about the numerous fires that blazed within. However, it was not Lejule who responded. "For one thing, they keep my cave warm." Owen looked toward the source of the sound and saw the most wondrous sight of his life. Lounging on a massive raised section of rock was a relatively small dragon. Its scales shone with many metallic colors in the flickering firelight, most predominantly copper and gold. "Second, they ensure that I am not blinded whenever I venture outside." The dragon stood and stretched in a catlike manner, revealing his full size. Owen estimated that Rhineheart was twelve feet tall, twenty-eight feet long, and possessed a wingspan of thirty feet. "If I have not lost track of time, you are years early. And who is your winged friend? You have not brought a stranger here in…ever."

"True to both statements. I am six years early. The reason leads to the answer your question. This is Owen. While he may not appear to be so, he is my descendant, and the closest to a biological child I have had in millennia."

"His form would say otherwise, yes, but his scent is similar enough for me to tell the relation." Rhineheart extended his right forepaw. "Pleasure to meet you, Owen, son of Lejule."

Owen shook the dragon's surprisingly hand-like paw and replied, "Likewise, Rhineheart."

"Ah, so Lejule told you about me."

Casting a sidelong glance at his ancestor, the young hybrid answered, "In a way, yes."

The whelp tilted his head in confusion. "What are you not saying? Lejule has always been direct."

Owen sighed and rubbed the fur behind his ears, which folded back unconsciously. "Um…"

"It involves my father, does it not? If so, I am able to withstand the pain."

"Lejule kept a written account of the time he spent with you two."

"Which you read."

"Yes. And after he read it, he begged to see you harder than a four-year-old human child who wants a new toy," Lejule answered as he ground his palm against the back of Owen's head, mussing up the fur.

"Hey! I only begged as hard as a six-year-old. There's a difference. A small difference, but it's still a difference."

The dragon chuckled before changing the subject. "Why would you want to see me such an amount that you would force the alpha werewolf to break his visitation schedule?"

"I've been fascinated with dragons since I was a child, and the opportunity to see a living dragon was too great to resist," Owen replied with a shrug.

Lying down, Rhineheart said, "It was, was it? Hmmm…tell me what you think you know about my kind."

The hybrid sat down while Lejule excused himself from the line of fire. "Well, to start, most, if not all dragons have the ability to produce a destructive exhalation, most commonly fire."

"Yes." The younger dragon nodded.

"Their scales are nearly impenetrable and indestructible."

"'Nearly?'"

"Dragon teeth and claws are the only things strong and sharp enough to pierce the scales. In fact, back when dragons were more plentiful, ancient cultures tried to use shed dragon scales as armor. However, the very quality that made dragon scales so desirable made them all but impossible to work with." He was stopped by the shocked and questioning stares of both his ancestor and the dragon. "What?"

Rhineheart stayed silent, so it was Lejule who gave voice to the question, "Where could you have possibly learned all of that?"

"I'd bet you'd remember this, since this occurred during your lifetime, but humans and dragons once lived together in relative peace."

"Yes, with dragon-to-human relationships ranging from tyrant god to loyal friend."

"Well, my family, and by extension yours, had one of the 'loyal friends' and five or six consecutive generations of Riders."

"Only the dragons of what is now Russia allowed humans to ride them, and only the most trusted humans were given the honor. To have six generations from the same family…" He trailed off with an appreciative whistle. "My sense of honor ran deep in the blood, it seems."

"Yes, it did and still does."

The three of them continued to converse for several hours, one of the topics being the dragon's mastery of fire; Rhineheart demonstrated his progress by breathing a small amount of fire into one of his forepaws, and then manipulating it to cloak his entire body in flame, creating a rather demonic image.

After night fell, Owen asked, "Rhineheart, if it's not too forward, could you help me relive one aspect of my family's glory days?"

It took the drake a moment to mine the true meaning out of the cryptic question. Just to make sure that he had interpreted the request correctly, he asked his interpretation. "You…wish to ride me?"

"If it isn't too much trouble."

Lejule bit his lip, worried that his descendant might have insulted the noble young dragon with his request.

Instead, Rhineheart simply laughed. "Well, you are a little large…"

The ultiwere shifted back to his human form and replied, "How about now?"

The dragon covered his eyes with a forepaw and demanded, "Put some clothes on. Please. And then we shall fly."

"Yes!" Owen whooped as he ran back to their boat to retrieve his clothes.

Several minutes later, the three living myths were assembled in a small valley between two peaks. It was at this time that Owen noticed a detail that differed from the majority of the representations of dragons he had seen. Instead of spikes or small scales running along the centerline of the drake's back, there was a single line of massive, armor-thick, triangular scales that went from the base of Rhineheart's skull to the very tip of his tail.

So enthralled was young Mister Grummish in his study of the scales that he missed the dragon's question the first time. "Hmm?"

"Are you ready, young Owen?" Rhineheart asked again as he lay down on his belly.

The youth smiled. "Born ready," he replied as he trotted over to the drake's side and hopped up onto the noble beast's back.

"Be careful. My scales _are_ very hard." The warning came too late.

"Ow…" Owen groaned.

Chuckling, Rhineheart stood and stretched his wings. "Have a ni-" Lejule began, but he cut off the sentence with a yelp as Owen reached down, grabbed his ancestor's hand, and yanked the four-hundred-pound werewolf up onto the dragon's back with him. Rhineheart's chuckling turned into full-blown laughter.

Before Lejule could get off or object, the dragon, with a jump and a powerful flap of his massive, leathery wings, took flight. The few minutes of soaring over the Swiss, French, and Italian Alps were the best minutes of Owen's life. When they landed, however, Lejule was actually trembling. "What gives, Dad?"

Taking deep breaths, the ancient werewolf tried, and failed, to steady his breathing and replied, "The only thing I hate more than man-eaters: flying."

"Are you serious?" Owen asked incredulously.

"I took a plane ride in 1912, and I haven't gotten off the ground or the sea since."

The dragon shook his head lamentably and commented, "That is just sad."

When the werewolf and ultiwere came home, Quartermaine handed Lejule a video cassette tape and stated, "You need to see this." As they walked in, the Viking continued, "I performed your ritual, as you were busy with your field trip. When I came back to my hotel, that was the news report."

They put the tape into the VCR and a News 4 Tucson broadcast began. "Breaking news tonight. Convicted Tucson Shooter Jared Lee Loughner was found dead in his prison cell this morning. He was currently on death row after being convicted last October of forty-three of forty-six counts for his rampage on January 8, two years ago. Now, authorities aren't releasing exact details about his death, but, in an official statement, Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced that the scene was, quote, 'the most horrid thing I've ever witnessed.'"

Suddenly, the recording switched to a different broadcast from the next day. "Yesterday, we brought you news that Tucson Shooter Jared Loughner had been killed in his cell. Well, this morning, a werewolf, a member of that race that revealed themselves on Christmas Eve, has claimed responsibility. He has agreed to an interview, but only via Skype."

The screen then split into two views, one showing one of News 4's reporters; the other side showed a view of a rust-furred werewolf through a webcam. "So, you claim that you were the one who killed Jared Loughner."

"Oh yes. That bastard did not deserve to live even one of the days he did after the Shooting. Any man who purposefully kills a child, especially one who has not even reached the end of her first decade of life, should be killed immediately after the killing. However, I did not want to rob your human legal system of its quarry. Thus, I waited until the verdict had been reached. I made sure that he died very slowly and painfully. And, when he was dead, I took his black heart in my claws and crushed it." The malevolent, cold gleam in the werewolf's crimson irises revealed that he was telling the truth…and liking it.

With that, the tape ended. "He calls himself 'The Lycan.'"

"Have you traced that Skype signal?"

"We tried, but he routed it through well over a dozen different computer networks, making it impossible to find him."

Lejule sighed. "Just when things were going so well."

Later, the elder werewolf explained what Quartermaine had meant by "ritual." "After the Tucson Shooting, I vowed to, every anniversary, place a single morning glory flower on Christina Taylor-Green's grave."

As spring rolled around, the youth was watching the news with Quartermaine, who was propping himself up against the back of the couch on his elbows with his arms crossed.

"There was a new wave of violence today as supporters of skinwalker citizenship clashed with protestors. Political correspondent Chuck Todd is in Washington, D.C. with more. Chuck, good evening."

"Good evening, Brian. Well, the Senate today struck down a bill that would have granted skinwalkers federal recognition as people, which would have granted them full civil rights. Detractors of the bill said that, to quote one protester, 'those demons don't deserve the same rights as human beings.'"

"Demons?" Quartermaine guffawed.

"Those who do not care one way or the other say that the bill would have only been a formality, as the skinwalkers have already enjoyed full civil rights for centuries. Now, a House committee has also struck down a bill that would have annulled crimes committed by skinwalkers in their beast forms. The argument in favor of the bill claimed that they do not know what they're doing when they 'unleash the beast.' However, the primary detractors of the bill were the skinwalkers, themselves, claiming that the favorable argument was completely untrue. Public reaction to the news was mixed."

The station pulled up a testimonial by a woman in her twenties. "I'm perfectly fine with having a werewolf live next door, as long as he doesn't try to eat me or anyone else."

The next testimonial was that of a middle-aged man. He was ranting, "My friends, we must rise up and eradicate these demons who wear the skins of men!"

His next words were drowned out by Quartermaine's second boisterous guffaw. "Again? 'Demons?'"

"Peace, Quartermaine. Allow a man his opinions," cautioned Lejule, who had walked in only ten or so seconds earlier. "…even if said opinions are completely idiotic."

"Hey, Dad. "Where've you been?"

"Conducting research. Finding other skinwalkers. The usual." He hung his coat on the rack by the door and continued, "I found a colony of werewolves living in the heart of Australia."

"Some of ours we somehow lost contact with?" Quartermaine asked.

"No."

"Thylacine wolves?" Owen broke in before his ancestor could explain.

The ancient alpha werewolf stared quizzically at his descendant. "How could you have possibly guessed that?"

"Oh, just call it a hunch," the hybrid replied as he cast a sidelong glance toward his adoptive father's video library.

After a few seconds, Lejule figured out what his adoptive son was referring to and laughed. "These thylacine werewolves are far more lithe, graceful, and majestic than those of 'Howling 3.' In fact, they're more lithe and graceful than us. However, I actually came to tell you of one other skinwalker who might be of interest to you."

"How do you mean?"

"I think I have found your tigress grandmother."

The youth stood, mouth agape, for several seconds before he blurted, "Where are we going?"

Lejule caught the request and stated, "Thailand."

One Month Later

Khao Lak

Owen followed Lejule through the streets of the small town that, even now, still struggled to recover from the devastation of the tsunami that had struck seven years and a season earlier. He gulped, straining to hold back his tears.

"They don't want or need your pity, Owen. What they need is a helping hand." Owen opened his mouth to speak, but Lejule cut him off as if the elder had heard the younger's thoughts. "Find something you can humanly do. I need to gather a little more information on our quarry."

After a few minutes, Lejule caught up with his son, who was in the process of helping a few workers maneuver a massive timber into place in the roof of one of the outbuildings of the local hotel. After the wooden beam was in position, the elder werewolf nodded to one of the workers, who nodded in return and herded his buddies to another project. "What's up?" Owen asked as he wiped a little sweat off his brow.

"I know where she is. About a day's hike to the East, in the Surat Thani province, Phunphin district, Krut subdistrict, is a village so small that it has no official name. However, the local nickname for it is 'Tigers' Den.' That must be her home."

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go."

"No. The hour is too later to begin the journey. We shall find a place to sleep tonight and then set off at first light."

The hike would have taken longer for a human, but the two skinwalkers, with their larger reserves of stamina, were able to cover the distance within a day. "I guess that's why people call this place 'Tigers' Den,'" Owen stated as he pointed out one of the namesake creatures.

"Yes, I would assume they are one reason. However, I assume there is another reason."

"Weretigers, or, as the Shaman would correct me, tiger-walkers?"

"Yes. And your grandmother is among them."

Less than another minute of walking later, they entered the nameless village. Many of the residents appeared uncertain of how to react. Others cast questioning glances at Owen, themselves, and a hut just barely visible past the trees at the far end of the village. Still others issued the two American-born skinwalkers challenges with their stares.

Taking a deep sniff, Owen noticed a unique scent. "Are they–?"

"Yes. Every single one." Lejule then shifted to his wolf form and said something in Thai.

Almost as one, each weretiger shifted. Realizing that all attention was now on him, Owen removed his shirt, began to shift, removed his pants after white fur covered his genitalia, and let the transformation continue at its fullest pace.

When the final stage of the ultiwere's change was completed, one of the tiger-walkers stated, in perfect English, ""You are looking for the Pale One, the outcast, Tamara," and pointed toward the isolated hut.

"Why is she outcast?" Owen asked, flexing his claws.

"She stained the bloodline by breeding with an outsider."

Owen growled, but Lejule tugged at his arm, subtly warning him to not press the issue. "Thank you," he said to the weretiger who had provided the information. The pair walked over to the hut in question, and the werewolf rapped his knuckles against the bamboo door.

After a short conversation in Thai, a native woman who looked to be in her twenties opened the door, looked Owen over, and replied, "I cannot help you."

"Does the name James Carter Grummish mean anything to you?" the hybrid asked.

The question stopped Tamara in mid-movement as she was about to close the door. "How do you–?"

"He was my grandfather."

Lejule cleared his throat politely and mentioned, "By scent, the youth shares your blood, ma'am."

"And yours, wolf."

"Yes. However, my blood was added to his line a long time before yours."

Guiding the conversation back to the original reason he had wanted to come, Owen asked, "Grandma? Would you want to come home with me?"

"What of my son, your father?"

"He died, twenty years ago. You, and Lejule, are the only blood relatives I have left."

Tamara considered for a few seconds, and then she stepped outside of her hut and shifted to her glorious nine foot eleven inch golden tabby tiger form and replied, "I would be honored to help raise an heir to my blood."

A joy-filled Owen scooped his grandmother into a massive bear hug. Lejule simply smiled at the display of affection…until he himself was pulled into the hug, at which point he laughed.

By November, Owen had personally met over one hundred thousand skinwalkers spanning six continents and over thirty species. After coming back from the last meeting, a jaguar-anaconda mixed family in the Amazon Rainforest, he asked Lejule if they could invite "a few friends" over for Thanksgiving dinner. When asked to elaborate, the youth replied, "Every skinwalker and other mythical creature on the planet."

After explaining the sheer impracticality of such a guest list, he bartered the list down to the heads of each family of skinwalkers, Rhineheart, and the Jersey Devil. "If he finds out that we had a feast we didn't invite him to, we wouldn't hear the end of it," Lejule explained.

The next day, Owen, Quartermaine, and the Shaman were discussing the menu for the meal. "A'right, laddie, almost all of the 'walkers'll need a kilogram of venison."

"My bears will not be sated with any less than half that."

"Aye. And the snakes will probably want at least a whole pig, each. As for you, Owen, I dinnae ken."

"I think I will have the same tastes as her bears."

"Except that yours will be raw where theirs are rare."

"Har de har har."

"I'm serious." At that moment, Lejule walked in. "Ah. And what would our great Alpha male like to have for Thanksgiving dinner?"  
"I will not be able to attend, unfortunately," the elder werewolf replied as he walked toward his bedroom.

"Well, heck, I'm going with him."

Owen started to get up, but Quartermaine grabbed his arm and pulled him back down into his seat. "Uh-uh. When Lejule adopts that tone, he's heading off somewhere, and he doesn't want company. You'll have to sit this one out, young pup."

Owen simply grumbled as Lejule walked out with a walking staff in one hand, his patrol cap in the other, and his trench coat slung over his shoulder.

It was nearly time for the Winter Solstice by the time Lejule reached his new destination, grounding his small yacht on the beach of one of his private islands. As he stepped off and landed on the beach, he heard the howls he had expected.

He looked up just in time for a massive repentant man-eater werewolf, white-furred except for the vivid rust stripe, to crash down in a three-pillared stance in the sand in front of him. "Life without human flesh suits you, Brother."

"Lejule. It has been so long that I have already forgotten the taste. I…I had missed how good our lives felt without that addiction."

"Glorious, no?"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"How are the others faring?"

"Surprisingly well. They themselves have been surprised how little they miss the taste of human flesh."

"And your children?"

"Ask them, yourself," Lazar replied as he half-turned and beckoned to the jungle behind him.

Hesitantly, with their mother keeping them close, the three coywolves stepped onto the beach. "So. Not happy with letting us live in exile? Come to kill the rest of us off? Huh?" Alyssa growled.

"No. I simply came to see how you all were faring and if any of you needed anything." He held his arms up fully away from his sides. "As you can see, I have no weapon."

"Hmph."

"We are fine, Lejule. This island has plenty of game, and all of it is without the trappings of civilization. It is a paradise for skinwalkers. I am content, as are most of us here."

"Most?"

"Well, several of the youngest of our kind, who have never known what it is like to not be in the shadow of civilized life, are undergoing a sort of culture withdrawal."

"Ah. Well, that is to be expected."

They continued to talk for the rest of the day, discussing what had occurred over the year that they had been separated. While not much of interest had happened on Lazar's little island, he was certainly interested in Lejule's adventures that mainly involved discovering the various other skinwalker species. He still could not believe that Lejule had never even known of the others before the battle.

When the sun sank low in the sky, the younger brother offered, "By the way, would you like to come down to the village?"

"You built a village here?"

Alyssa yipped in outrage. "He most certainly is not coming into our home."

"Please, Uncle Lejule, will you come?" asked Jeremiah.

"It would be an honor, but your mother says no, and I respect her decision."

Lazar smiled solemnly. "So, I guess that your business is done for today, my Brother." He held out his arms for a hug.

"So it seems," Lejule replied as they embraced. He then walked away, waving goodbye to his younger brother's family as he left. After he pushed his yacht off of the beach and clambered aboard, he shouted, "I shall be back in a year. Good luck."

"And good luck to you, Lejule. You shall envy our warmth." How quaint of Lazar to remember that it was nearly winter in the Northern Hemisphere while here, in the Southern Hemisphere, it was almost summer.

For the first time in millennia, as he watched the little knot of skinwalkers embrace each other and wave goodbye to him, Lejule had full closure and peace in his heart.


End file.
